In a message dated 15/11/2008 03:58:55 GMT Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<That is why you need independents and not today's factory farm  mills.>>


    Surely what you need is beekeepers who either raise  their own queens, or 
at least let the bees raise them on their own. That's how  it's done in the 
UK, where we have no significant queen breeding industry. We  still have to 
cope with people incessantly importing queens, as people in the US  would have to 
cope with neighbours buying in queens. But you've got to start  somewhere, 
and I never cease to be surprised at the bees' capacity for  maintaining a 
strain without too much outcrossing. I think mating with drones  from the home 
apiary is a lot more important than we sometimes  assume.

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