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Date: | Tue, 17 Nov 2020 20:16:16 -0500 |
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Hi all
Still trying to get to the bottom of the topic of supersedure. This bit is from 100 years ago, yet seems to cover the ground:
REQUEENING BY THE BEES.
How often it is impressed on us to requeen every year if we
mean to have a bumper honey crop. C. P: Dadant, in the American
Bee Journal, says " I have seen so many good queens prove good
the third year that I prefer not to replace a first class two-year old
queen by one whose ability is unknown - to me. The bees usually
requeen in good time, if the matter is left to them."
Dr. Miller comments on this thus :- " Same here. Those who
think it pays to requeen every year might gain by getting a new
strain of bees. Yet there are always some queens which do not
come up to the mark and they should be promptly replaced."
As pertinent to this question let me quote from another American writer
in Gleanings, Harry Lathrop, who says:-" Another question I
should like to touch on ; Mr. Alexander and some others advocate
purchasing or rearing queens for wholesale requeening. In our
Apiary we practise clipping the queens each spring. When clipping
time comes we find that only about ten per cent. of the queens
have clipped wings. Does not this indicate that the queens were
superseded the previous Autumn ? It is claimed that the best
queens are produced by superseding; then why buy queens in order
to avoid having queens over two years old ? Strange that some
things stand out as being of such great importance to some practical
men, which things do not seem to be any part of the problem of
successful honey production to others. I like to have young vigorous
queens of good breeding and do purchase some fine queens from the
breeders of best reputation, but when it comes to a good honey year,
the blacks and hybrids of the yard, especially those persistent
blacks, are right there with the goods, producing as much honey
as the best bred stock." To all of this I can heartily agree, often
I have found that a queen had been superseded and never noticed
any break in the activity of the colony while this was taking place.
September, 1919. THE BEE WORLD.
I raised this question earlier this year when I notice the opposite: colonies which failed to supersede, leading to their demise. I realize that many beekeepers would only find such a colony after it had failed and would have no idea what had actually happened.
PLB
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