"[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:I'd think for an outfit that runs thousands of colonies, they have 
come across the same behavior many times...  I don't think I'd want 
replacement queens, free or otherwise, from the same source.

I think you are right.  But, ..... Their business is to sell queens and packages.  I don't think they want to advertise that their operations have been infiltrated by Africanized bees.  So.... The only alternative for customers and possible future customers is to announce to the beekeeping world at large that they have gotten very bad queens from this source.  Not saying that the queens they produce are bad but that the particular queens they received from that particular source were bad.

You have little control over open mating in Africanized territory.  
Drone colonies would have to come from a non-Africanized area and the 
feral Africans would still have a mating advantage based on the 
current knowledge.  AI would be way too expensive.  The semen source 
would have to be outside of the Africanized territory as well.

Waldemar


The only alternative I see is for these companies to establish a bee free zone of about ten miles radius around their mating yards, to ensure that any colonies within this area are hives containing queens whose drones they would desire to mate with their virgin queens.  We had one queen breeder here in Alabama who would go around each spring, very early, and requeen the hives being kept in this area with queens which he raised as drone producers.  I'm sure that he didn't get all of the colonies in this area requeened, but he got a preponderance done so and the queens and packages he produced were quality products.  It helped that most of the feral colonies had been decimated by the mites.  When queen and package producers are in known AFB infested areas, a procedure of eradication will have to occur.  Using baits they will have to find all the feral colonies and unknown colonies and either destroy the colonies (feral) or requeen with marked and clipped queens they desire to
 use for drone production.  Also, they will have to clean up the genetics in their own apiaries.  All of this is a costly and time consuming process but it is the only way I see for them to continue in business.

Mike in LA

 		
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