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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
George W Imirie <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 7 Jul 1998 23:56:21 EDT
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I can't speak for all; but some simply, with lots of smoke to disguise scent
and colony protocol, just release a young laying queen on the top bars of the
upper body, and rely of the natural chances of nature that a YOUNG queen
moving DOWNWARD from the top towards the BROOD area will be able to defeat the
old queen upon arrival on the scene and take over the colony.  In "some ways",
the "program" has many of the ingredients of queen supercedure, where the
young queen is allowed to emerge, cruise about the hive for 5-6 days, mate,
and take over the colony while the old queen is still there alive for a short
time.
Then there are commercial beekeepers who at summers end, remove all supers and
ship just a one or two story hive south for the winter.  The beekeeper's
helpers are pretty quick at finding the old queen among just 10 or 20 frames,
kill her, and requeen.
If there are 100 commercial beekeepers, there are 100 different ways of
requeening, but few of the ways are what we hobbyists have time to do.  They
also have to "play percentages", i. e., their method might not be the best,
but it is FAST and it works MOST of the time.  If it doesn't, well, we lost
that swarm, so we will make an additional split in the spring.
Dale:  If you wanted a portrait of yourself as an obituary picture, could you
wait the 2-3 years it might take Leonardo Devinci to paint it, or would you
get one of the Walt Disney character painters to do it for you in a few hours?
Commercial beekeepers are making their living doing pollination and/or
producing honey; whereas the hobbyist is pleasurizing his ego, not his
pocketbook.
     I hope this helps.  Thanks for asking.                  George Imirie

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