Hi Bob, Allen & all
Bob said...
> Replacing queens which are obviously failing is not rocket science.
> What else are you going to do and what are you risking as the hive is
> already in trouble.
I was not talking about replacing queens that were 'failing'... The queens
that I would be replacing are those that show the least desireable traits,
they would not be defective and would probably have a couple of years
'useful' life left in them. This is especially true when requeening early in
the year from overwintered mating nucs, but then the queens that are pulled
from the large hives are put back into the bulked up mating nucs to lay up
brood for later when the nucs will be put to their main use.
> Almost all commercial honey producers will say that queens in the third
> to fifth year are swarmy and the queen can fail at any time.
This is the case in US, but in UK it is subtly different... The colonies
with queens that are tailing off are likely to supercede rather than swarm,
particularly later in the season.
Allen said...
> a supplier within 1,000 miles of their operation. Moreover, their
> operation may move thousands of miles over a year, and the owner
> and his crews may be a thousand miles from some of the hives at any
> given time. There are no 'local conditions' in such an operation.
Now that is a situation that I have no experiance of at all, Nor do we have
a UK counterpart... Some hives may be moved a fair distance for pollination
or heather honey production, but distances and hive number are much smaller
than in US. I have no idea where to start to find a strain that is 'good'
for a travelling lifestyle.
> They also like to have uniform hives for easy management, and
> supercedure queens can lead to variable hives.
We also seek uniform hives, but in our case the supercedure is working with
us rather than against us.
> In their travels, they can pick up some bad characteristics (AHB?) if
> supercedure queens are allowed to continue. Regular requeening can
> forestall that.
The nearest thing we have in common here is that travelled bees might pick
some 'out of strain' genes, but they will likely be the ones that show up as
undesireable and be the first candidates for replacement queens. If not
replaced quickly by the beekeeper they may well be weeded out by the weather
conditions.
> Additionally, if a beekeeper is using hygienic stock, supercedure queens
> prove susceptible, and cause breakdown with disease.
With any stock that has been bred out of the context of the drones in the
area of operation, you will either have to continually requeen or install a
set of guard ring apiaries that contain the desireable drones.
Murray said...
> that even on my comparatively tiny scale, if a supplier could offer me
> queens effective in my area they would get a big order every spring.
I am not surprised that Murray would opt for strains that were more
effective, but I would have thought that would be difficult to find in his
case, as the bees he uses and the methods he has developed to use them seem
to me to be very well adapted to his region and his forage.
> I do not happen to believe a lot of the stuff about bought in queens
> being naturally inferior to what you breed
I am not suggesting that such queens are 'inferior', but that they are 'out
of context' in relation to the background genetics in an area, and thus will
not mix as amicably as would locally raised stocks.
As to bulk orders for 35,000 queens... My mind just boggles :-)
Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman & http://www.dave-cushman.net
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