> As well as the percentage: what exactly do you mean by 'healthy'?  Can 
> live without being propped up by medications/can perform propped up by 
> medications?

Actually, the question was quite simple and clear: "What is the percentage 
that I can expect of Queens who  will emerge healthy".

The writer was asking for reports of actual, real world experience from 
actual practicing beekeepers who have purchased cells and who have first 
hand experience.

In the question asked, no assumptions were made that stock would be from any 
particular commercial breeder.

Some may not know this, or want to know this, but not all commercial 
breeders "prop up" their breeding parental stock with "medications". 
Moreover, there are quite a few small regional stock and and 'survival' 
stock breeders, and in that market, purchase of cells is very common, since 
it saves the breeder from the work of running nucs and saves the buyer money 
and speeds up the process of upgrading the buyer's stock.

Even the much reviled big name breeders test their potential breeders in 
chemical-free situations and select for strains which need the least or none 
or obtain stock from researchers or breeders who do the grunt work.

Personally, I have purchased literally thousands of cells from several such 
breeders and can reply to the question asked.  I have addressed my 
experience in detail in my diary, and I will, assuming this thread does not 
get further hijacked, attempt to summarize here as time permits.

As an illustration, I sat with Charlie and Tom at the EAS banquet and took 
the opportunity to ask Tom what his experience and the experience of the 
co-operators with AFB has been during development and refinement of the 
Primorski stock.  He said he a has seen a little a few times but that it has 
not been a problem, and if anyone should have a problem it should have been 
him since he swaps equipment with everyone.

I asked further if he has had to medicate for mites or for brood diseases 
and he said categorically, "No".  No treatments.

Charlie said the same and will probably say so again here when he reads 
this.  I saw Manly at the North American Conference, but did not have a 
chance to chat.  I have not seen Hubert lately or talked to him.

Anyhow, no matter what the source, and the stock, the question is people's 
experience with percentage of healthy queens emerging from cells which are 
purchased and transported, so let's, please keep to the topic.

If it seems necessary to write about the other topic, please start a new 
thread with a new subject line so that people can choose to read it -- or 
not.   Oh, wait a minute -- we already have several such threads.  They all 
started out as something else and wound up diverted to or diluted with 
repetitions of the same vague, nebulous and irrelevant insinuations and 
rhetoric.

Unfortunately, the kind of comment to which I am responding presupposes 
things which are not true and simply by entering conversation repeatedly can 
give readers a false perspective.  As Paul Rove asked Socrates rhetorically 
in one of my favourite one-panel cartoons, "Surely, by repetition, does a 
lie not become truth"?  (Unfortunately, for many it does).

This list is called "Informed" discussion, and those who are truly informed 
will know from reading past discussions that BEE-L participants are very 
much against routine chemical interventions, but also understand that they 
may often be necessary to save a livelihood.

Many of us are actively working on stock improvement and adaptation, either 
by working on foundation stock, by selecting in our own outfits, or when 
purchasing, choosing sources which introduce desirable adaptive qualities 
into our existing outfits, including minimal chemical dependence.

To answer the question, to most of us practical people who are actually 
running bees, "healthy", means that the queen emerges with all her parts, 
fully developed, and undamaged by cold, virus, or other various things which 
result in a dud, and go on to  successfully mate and head a productive 
colony in whatever type of operation for which it was purchased.

Clearly, "Being propped up by medications/can perform propped up by 
medications" has nothing whatsoever to do with the question asked.

Let me ask the writer above, what is your experience in purchasing and 
introducing cells? 

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