>
>Thanks David.  Wow - what I still can't fathom is how much work it would be
>to go through a couple thousand hives and find the queens to clip them.
>You must figure that it's cost-efficient, as you are running commercial.
>But - Don't you find that you lose swarms anyway, with virgins, leaving
>colonies weakened for the honey flow?  Maybe I'm missing the point - I was
>under the impression that even if the swarm returns to the parent because
>the queen can't fly, they will abscond as soon as a new queen emerges from
>a swarm cell.  Have you had this happen? and will the clipped queen remain
>in the hive and begin laying again after a swarm emerges?
>
>BTW just read "Queens-Land" about queen production in Australia which was
>very interesting.
>Thanks for any info.   Joel
>
Hi Joel;
 
        All queens are mated in mating yards away from the production hives,
and tested in nucs to observe their laying pattten, when the queen is caged
for transport to the production hives in banks of two to three hundred
queens all these queen are clipped , therefore totally reducing there
swarming ability.
The only time spent in the production areas is to find the old queen, before
introducing the new queen, Today I broke up a three deck hive, and in the
brood chamber , the first frame I with drew, there was the queen, other of
course can take much longer, even to the extent of setting up a new box on
the old site with new frames with some brood frames, and brush all bees off
the frames into a box above with the queen excluder between the two, as the
bees (workers) go below locate the queen and destroy.Then place the brood in
the upper box and introduce the new queen into the brood box, I use the
smoker and allow the new queen to run of my hand through the main entrance.
Thanks from :
                        [log in to unmask]
                 http://www.eastend.com.au/~goble
            [log in to unmask] ( David Goble )
           American Beach Kangaroo Island South Australia