First, a big thanks to those responding and kind
efforts in looking up references,  much appreciated!

I have interest in breeding feral queens in the
future.  I have documented areas where each feral was
obtained, and any evidence that might suggest the
likelihood that they are influenced more to the feral
side surviving in the wild for 4 to 5 years or more.


As a first step, I determined a high priority that I
reduce risk and preserve a few traits I am seeing in a
few ferals.  I decided that I would make these couple
of colonies queenless and use the queen cells to make
up several colonies.

Problem is, the mother feral queen usually has an
excellent brood pattern, and the daughters although
having an acceptable brood pattern, do not have an
equally impressive pattern as the mothers had.  Do you
believe this may due to them reared from emergency
queen cells?

Also, I'm assuming from answere in previous posts that
the genetics are ok in these under performing queens
and the problem my be that they have not developed
adequate ovaries due to them being emergency bred.

If this is the case, would I be correct in assuming
that quality queens can be bred from these under
performers that have the existing underlining traits I
am wanting to keep?,,, providing the queens be started
from egg?  Or should I destroy these queens and go
back to the mother queen? Thanks!






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