a Janet L. Wilson snip followed by > my comments
That said, there are two good reasons to buy local bees:

1. you (hopefully) are not buying pests and diseases from outside your area: here we are still Small Hive Beetle free and would like to keep it that way. Ditto for Africanized bees, amitraz resistant bees, and resistant/virulent strains of foulbroods.

2. you support your local bee producers, whose track record you can verify ie. who reliably makes good queens, who is available to help you when you have questions/challenges with your bees.

>for the new beekeeper #2 is most important.  the down side is some 'local' bees are imported in mass from some supplier with the seller only acting as a middle man.

>to add to your list I will also add bees do not ship so well especially when the weather is too hot or too cold.  'local' reduces travel time from days to hours.

>as to the previously referenced study it seems to me the title should have been 'timing in establishing an apiary and 'location of apiary'.  in the previous study referenced in the link it seems there was some essential detail that was not present in an accurate manner.  this failure to be precise seem to have given some folks the idea that the study revealed outcomes that were inaccurate.

>if there is some detail in the study to tag onto it is the difference in the description of the three sites and the influence of this one variable on outcome.

Gene in Central Texas...  

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