Rip brought up some interesting points:
 1. Yes, topography in Calif. has to be kept in mind and in some cases
topography has a significant effect on drone/queen flight.
2. At least two Calif. *producers* of NWC's say they only use instrumentally
inseminated queen mothers to produce queens for sale. Nonetheless, the
queens you and I purchase are open mated with 'whatever' drones. IMO, there
is a real difficulty with these queens because the drones are produced in
combs that are more or less contaminated with fluvalinate or coumaphous, or
both. The presence of these chemicals has led to significant reductions in
the amount of viable sperm produced by the drones. Sooner or later, one or
more of these producers will announce that they have stopped using these
chemicals (and replaced their combs) and this will provide them with a
significant competitive advantage...for awhile. One has all ready announced
that they have stopped using coumaphous.
3. I well remember the Hastings stock, and even twice purchased a breeder
queen (in the early 70's) from Hastings for the then princely sum of $100
each. But he was not a large producer as his season was too short. He told
me that in his best year he produced just over 2,000 queens. Today, there
are queen producers at the 100,000 mark, several in the 25,000-50,000 range
and commercial beekeepers producing over 5,000 a year for their own use! Sue
Cobey told me that Hastings stock was "an important" part of her initial
stock selection.
 The Hastings Carniolans were unbelievably hardy and conservative with
stores. This stock was maintained north of the 'agricultural zone' in
Canada, meaning that a farmer couldn't be expected to make a living
producing crops or animals, and there were no feral bees. They were
overwintered in single story 'cardboard' cases with no wrapping and no
feeding! Pictures of the yards during winter only showed humps in the snow
and he said that sometimes the hives were under accumulations of four feet!
In the Albany area the queens would go through the winter with perhaps a
pound of bees and would hardly use any stores at all.
 In mid-May, when our normal stock is getting ready to swarm, these hives
would have 3-4 frames of brood. By the first of July, when our flow gets
going, they'd be bursting from the hive but had little tendancy to swarm.
 I feel privilaged to have had some short experience working with this
stock.
--
Lloyd Spear
Owner Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacture of equipment for round comb honey sections,
Sundance Pollen Traps, and producer of Sundance custom labels.
Contact your dealer or www.RossRounds.com <http://www.rossrounds.com/>

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