I think these numbers are closer to the actual:

> In studies conducted in 1993-1994 and in 2004-2005, U.S. commercial queen producers self-reported the production of close to 1 million queens for sale from around 600 and 500 queen "mothers," respectively (Schiff and Sheppard, 1995, 1996; Delaney et al., 2009). 


As I have mentioned before,  Its not close....  Every spring I get the opportunity to travel a bit to some of the bigger players on both coast.   This year after that last discussion I asked a few different questions, (just got back last night).

The number of 1 million  is not close and anyone who ponders it a bit will agree.  As we k now few queens survive more than a season,  with many getting replaced more often than that.  So even if you use the conservative number of 3 million hives and a 2 year cycle,  your quickly at 1.5 million.  The real number is probably much closer to 4 million per season.

I asked Frank whos been involved with the California breeders Asc. For a long time,  what he thought the number was,  that group alone is responsible for well over a million.   I can name 6 GA breeders who combined would easily make another million,  and 4 or 5 Fl/TX guys who make up another 1/2 million.  These are just the ones I know,  and there are a lot of them I have never heard of!

If we assume a "stable" number of hives at 3 million,  and 40% loss  then we have to assume the number of hives ballooned to around  4.5 million active queens for the summer.  Since we know that 2/3 the hives (1.8 million) were alive for almonds,  then we know the 3 million number is in effect after losses.  I also know that package bees alone accounts for well over 600k  and for most producers  of packages and queens,  packages only make up 20% of the queen use.  Then on top that there are literally hundreds that sell queens but not packages.

My point being the 1 million number is not even close to passing the smell test, which for me makes the whole paper questionable. Just my position, but it took some number juggling to come up with those figures.




This year I asked a bit more about breeder queens.  Very curious as to the "600 and 500" number also.  It appears that number is also a bit off no matter how you look at it.(IMO)  assuming there are 20 "major" players in the queen market   some only have 3-4 breeder queens  then that pool  is now less than 100!  What surprised me in these discussions is that those suppliers are for the most part buying breeder stock from pools like the MH queens.  So those 100 queens are supplied by  a small group of 5 or 6 who sell "breeder" queens!

That was a surprise to me, as the one guy I am very close to has always done self selection  he picks the best from his yards.  Turns out that’s not the norm.  Keep in mind though that every season,  many times more than once  they are replaced.  Guys like Ray  and Mike are literally scouring the US for new stock,  so it keeps rotating at a fast pace.

Add in the other breeders and the number changes quickly,  there are well over 1000 people breeding queens at some scale,  with most having 2 or 3 breeders.  So now that pool is 4-5000  not 500.  Again,  several of these are going back to those "breeder queens" for sale of that small group,  but many are also self selecting, but in no way does the 500 number work.

The other thing that surprised me was the small amount of effort put into drone stock.  Not sure what to make of it yet,  but not the level of detail paid to that on a large scale as I would have expected.  But that’s a whole other topic for another day.

Charles

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