Mike writes: Commercial people don't have time to raise their own queens and have found queen sources whose queens fit their honey/pollination needs? Reply: If I equate this with man planted crops, with much plant hybridization and thus for oldtime LC bees FWIW, which then makes for quickie nucs splitting and queening, along with artificial feed, and treatments for movement from pollenation job to pollenation job continuously, with no localization of the bees to anyone given area, I can see where industry has gotten into deep problems should a roadblock appear, for where do you really put the bees that match anything in a natural environment, for they can never be self-sustaining born this way! So getting back then, to thoughts prior, if factory farming and factory queens are for artificialized hybrid crops by man's doing and not Nature, then why isn't real queen breeding taught to sideliners and hobbyists so they know the difference and can make a choice as to what they do, or is it? Then they can by choice either buy the artificial breed factory farmed queens, or get with other beekeepers doing breeding to fit localized areas/regions and native/natural plants in their given areas. Why isn't this distinction talked about more for needs??? or is it? Anyone really know? Could this be part of today's problem with our honeybees? Dee A. Lusby ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433 ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************