So my question for the larger holding beekeepers out there is:
when you buy a lot of queens do you find a big variation in quality? Do you find a lot fail or perform poorly in their first season?

             

Yes,  your correct  there is a bell curve,  and what we try to do is to cut off the low end tail.  We do this by coming back around and trying again on the slow ones,  or like this time of year we start culling. 

As far as a lot,  no a good queen producer will have 80% or better that the customer is very happy with.   Start getting below that and we look elsewhere.

Charles

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