I agree with the writer that there are some useful books on queen rearing out
there, and it can be pretty productive to read one or more of them. The
latest on the subject is Harry Laidlaw and Rob Page's 224 page masterpiece
titled Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding. It contains a nice balance of
practical queen rearing methods as well as a solid introduction to bee
genetics—which ultimately becomes an issue when a beekeeper becomes serious
about queen rearing. It also has lots of nice pictures and drawings! Most of
the world's major bee supply houses carry this title, and you can order it
from the dot.coms as well. My price is $25 plus $2.95 surface mail any where
in the world, and I have them ready to ship.

For those of you who care but don't know, my personal background includes the
leadership of a bee breeding program in Florida for Dadant and Sons and York
Bee Company. Called Genetic Systems we mass produced instrumentally
inseminated queen bees for production colonies. It was a noble effort, but we
closed the business in 1980 because we proved we could not compete with
mother nature. The genetic stock went to Hybrid Bees, and included the
Starline and Midnite programs.

Of the lessons learned in this adventure are the following:
        1. There is a tremendous amount of Important information we do not
know about what makes a good queen. A few scientists have addressed this
issue (especially John Harbo), but we still have lots of unanswered questions.
        2. Most beekeepers are not very well educated about using queen bees,
and would rather listen to someone with an "easy" method rather than read a
book or article written by an experienced author. Plus, most commercial queen
producers have learned a great deal about queen rearing—they have to or they
would be out of business—and most of them are quite willing to answer
questions. If you are really serious about queen rearing, offer to work for
one of the queen producers for free. It might be the best investment you will
ever make in your beekeeping training.
        3. Instrumentally inseminated queens are not the same as naturally
mated queens. That does not mean that they are necessarily bad, but they do
require different management from NM queens.

I can go on, but you get the point. I am always glad to help beekeepers who
are trying to develop a good reading list, and I will email you a short list
of beekeeping titles if you reply to [log in to unmask] and request one.

Oh, and for those of you who don't know and don't care, your delete key is
probably clearly marked—please don't send me any hate mail. I appreciate
that, since it gives me more time for those who do care!

Larry Connor, Ph.D
Wicwas Press (Beekeeping Books, Slide Sets, Video Tapes and Educational
Posters)
P.O. Box 817
Cheshire CT 06410-0817
Phone 203 272 6574
Fax 203 250 7575
email: [log in to unmask]