Hello All

Thom Bradley asks major questions on queen rearing in his recent post. His
best course of action IMHO, is to get hold of a book on Queen rearing, or
better still or perhaps in addition, get in touch with a good beekeeper
experienced in this activity, and well versed in the local beekeeping scene.

Not an easy one to master in a short time!. My first hesitant steps in this
direction this year have convinced me at any rate that it is far from simple
to master, (if it ever can be really mastered!). I would imagine that it
will take me many seasons before I am even moderately competent at queen
rearing.

Possibly the easiest thing to do is to rear a queen. However, I am of the
opinion that it is quite another matter to rear queens which are
consistently of good quality, docile, little inclined to swarming, not
overly given to robbing and really good foragers. Now throw in resistance to
disease and you have a really good product. And then you may discover that
some of these qualities are in conflict with one another so that you have to
get yourself into trade-off situations.

Rearing good queens is something to be aimed at, but I am convinced it will
take a lot of study and correct work and will not happen overnight. But then
who said that beekeeping was simple anyway?!



Sincerely
Tom Barrett
49 South Park, Foxrock
Dublin 18
Ireland
Tel + 353 1 289 5269
Fax + 353 1 289 9940