> > So long as they are golden and don't sting much. > Again, you keep focusing on this magical demand for color of queens, absent a selection for other traits. I'm not sure why you keep pushing this agenda. As Randy mentioned, he cares not of color alone. I care not of color alone (they could be black, grey, or purple for all I care, I don't even notice most of the time). I don't know anyone else who cares about the color of their queens absent honey yields, disease resistance, brood buildup . . . Where is this hypothetical mass of customers who want golden queens, but actively fail to care if they produce good offspring otherwise? > > Charlie Mraz: > > > We do not requeen normal colonies, but let each colony requeen itself. > Interesting. Can you share the source Pete? If there's more, I'd love to read the rest. I myself operated a similar system for the past 5 years. I imported about 25% of my queens each year, and bred from my best producing 3 colonies, requeening the remaining 75% that needed it annually. If the queen was producing fine, I let her continue to go until superseded or failure (followed by replacement). Never managing drone populations specifically. Between last summer and this spring something went terribly wrong though, and the vast majority of my hives turned incredibly vicious. Gloves became mandatory (which I despise). They became a threat to neighbors and my young daughter. A few were more aggressive than the rest, but once the pheromones are in the air in a yard, even a normal hive will turn defensive. Aware that my drones (and thus gene pool) were carrying vicious tendencies, I was forced to requeen almost all of my hives from imported stock, reset for a year, and try selecting for my best producing colonies next year. Hopefully my DCAs won't be flooded with nasty bees next year. What a shame to lose that 5 years of breeding. Lessons learned though. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html