Hi all
Continuing my investigation into the quality of commercially raised queens, I found this interesting exchange in the magazine "Bee World." Disclaimer: these are not my opinions, but the opinions of people long dead. I submit this to show that these questions have not been satisfactorily answered, unless you regard the very last sentence as a valid answer.
Some form of artificial queen-rearing is practised by almost all beekeepers and a few re-queen with queens received by mail, and in this may lie the need of many to replace their queens so frequently. So many of Dr. Miller's queens were raised by supersedure, and the others raised under such favourable conditions of honey flow, warmth and populous colonies, and the cells handled so carefully, that it resulted in the best of queens giving a long life of service and failing so gradually that the bees had ample time to supersede her with the best of queens. Queens less carefully raised, under less favourable conditions of honey flow, warmth, etc., injured in handling the cells or by shipping through the mails, are weakened, have a shorter life, and may die suddenly, and at a bad and even disastrous season for the beekeeper. I believe this is the reason so many find frequent requeening necessary, and that better queen-rearing should be advocated instead of frequent re-queening. Since writing the foregoing notes I have seen Mr. I. Hopkins's letter on queens reared by artificial methods (B. W., December, 1921, p. 195), and I believe he is exactly right.
February, 1922 THE BEE WORLD
ΒΆ
QUEEN REARING
I. HOPKINS. Auckland, N.Z.
I am particularly interested in your criticism of the Rev. M. Yate Allen's statements re artificial queen rearing, especially as I understand from your remarks he referred, and objected to the "cell-grafting" method. I have been very much interested in that method for many years, and agree with Mr. Allen in condemning it. I am convinced it has been the means of disseminating a number (practically uncountable) of weak and useless queens all over the bee world, the deteriorating effects of which we are now feeling in the decreased stamina of our bees. I have no doubt these gentlemen are doing their best to send out good queens, and I have no wish to impute dishonesty to any commercial queen breeder, but cell-grafting and the system usually accompanying it until the queens are sent out is so much more profitable than other plans that it is not at all likely it will be given up easily, even if proved at fault.
December, 1921 THE BEE WORLD
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