a Charles Linder snip 

Right now it sure seems that queen producers are evil and are the reasons we have the mite problems we have.....  always trying to Scam a buck with inferior non  queens that only last a few months..... southern queens that can't handle mites or survive the cold..... 

This is the current sentiment constantly pushed in many circles.....  

As you know I am pretty darn loyal to good people, and yes I get a bit defensive  of them at times.   We do know how good of people they usually are, and if most understood what they do to get good queens,  and the grief they get when one fails.....they would be a lot more supportive!

my comment....
Oh my the evil and greedy 'they'!
 
Your above comments sounds a bit 'all over the place' Charles.   I would guess queens can failed prematurely for any number of reasons.  It is pretty much common human behavior to blame others when failure hits and on many occasions others (for most the supply chain is not that short) certainly have had a hand in the disaster.  This 'attitude' is imho absolutely contrary for the individual to mitigating the problem as you move forward.

Personally I suspect where queens are grown (beyond the side effects of environmental contamination*) has little to do with whether queens and the bees issued from these queens can tolerate cold or handle mites.  Much of my current efforts are in running bees that are not treated for varroa but I also do a bit of corporate consulting collecting data on a large group of bees that are better described as 'commercial pollinator' type bees.  These commercial pollinator typle bees do seem to respond well to syrup stimulation, are extremely easy to work but will quickly crash at the first bump in the road.  Lots of folks point to varroa when they encounter this 'bump' although I often think poorly bred bees have been around much longer than varroa.

I currently SUSPECT that one factor we have lost due to the long term decline in beekeeping (and the current rise in interest by folks with little to no long term experience in rearing and breeding queens) is the small group of folks with experience in selecting bees for breeding purpose and the discipline to cary out a breeding program are now rarer than hens teeth.

*at this point in our interaction with varroa this environmental contamination may include beekeeper applied chemicals within the hive itself.

Gene < Central Texas   

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