Hi all

Michael Palmer wrote:

 > the average  hobby beekeeper doesn't have the colony numbers to
 > select breeder queens for the job, I believe when the beekeepers
 > in an association pool their resources, they do have the colony
 > numbers to make intelligent selection.

This is a bigger deal than most beekeepers think !

By assessing colonies of several (the more the better) beekeepers in an 
area, you can speed up your breeding process to arrive at quality stock 
to raise the queens from.

The more people recognise the quality of the queens, the more support 
the project will get. It does not happen overnight, it is a progressive 
process of improvement... But luckily, some big stages of improvement 
will be noticed in the first few seasons, the degree of improvement 
drops off a bit every year, but each step is still a step forward as you 
are building on previous year's improvement.

I wish you all success in establishing Northern bred stock, as I am a 
firm believer in 'horses for courses' and my belief has been re-enforced 
by my own breeding work and that conducted by several co-operative 
groups in UK and Ireland.

Grab the bull by the horns and 'go for it' !


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)

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