On Saturday, July 28, 2018 10:17 AM, Pete B <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 

 Failure or loss of queens has been considered one of the most important factors leading to colony losses, especially outside of the typical queen-rearing season. 
By who?  I see this written a lot,  but it doesnt jive completly, and seems a bit nonsensical.  First off of course we would blame the queen.  sure as heck arnt going to blame ourselves are we?    One of the largest and best queen breeders gave me a tip early in my beekeeping,  he said
"its almost never the queen"
soak that in a second  because the truth is its a huge key.  Realy bad laying patterns and sterile queens are pretty rare.  much more often is the whole host of other problems,  nutrition and mites being the top of the list.  MANY times that "dink queen" given a restart  booms,  I have to admit,  that changed me as a beekeeper.  no more excuses and blame game. 
Not saying always,  just that there is a lot of unneeded queen replacments.  AS evidence,  I personaly dont replace queens inless there is a drone layer,  or all the others in the same yards are booming while one is laying small areas.  maybe 10% a year?    
I was with one major queen producer this spring,  after packages when he gave the order to the crews to remove all the 3 year old queens before honey production in WY.  Once the shock wore off I realized he was selecting for longevity.    I would also add I dont think any producers are useing first year queens as breeders or drone colonies.  They wait until they have had a season to evaluate.

>Although queens have a 3–4 year adult lifespan, diminished longevity of queens (<1 year) is commonly >and increasingly observed.

Says who?  we all know animals in captivity live longer,  doesnt make it normal.  It seems to me if we look at the work,  we should see that a succesful queen raises a huge spring hive,  leaves with a swarm and is superceded right after she lays enough eggs for the new hive.  Simple knowledge of what really happens seems to indicate that statement is questionable at best.

>Currently, the majority of queens in the US are produced by relatively few commercial queen producers, >which raises concerns about a lack of genetic diversity and the spread of certain diseases, particularly >those that are transmitted vertically. 

Its been tested and refuted.  simple researcer ploy.


We examined the viability of spermatozoa in sexually mature drones from eight apiaries in three counties in Central Texas during the summers of 2013 and 2014.

A consistent pattern both years was that spermatozoa viability overall was low compared to previously published results that found average viability of 80% or greater (Collins and Donoghue 1999, Johnson et al. 2013). 
Interesting information  and no one would dispute beter viability is good!  but we also seem that 2013 show  80%  so it seems there is some variation we dont understand.    We also dont know if it matters.  With the queen appling mulitple  sperm to each egg,  is this an issue?  we simple have no information of sperm viabilty as it relates to good queens.

Charles
   

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