Allen Dick wrote back on 3 April

> Are those drones any good for mating queens by the time spring comes
> around?

I remember a question I asked Dr. Harry Laidlaw at Davis back in 1986.  I
actually have a tape of the talk he gave.  I asked if it was better to have
queens mate in the open in an isolated situation instead of Instrumental
Insemination as only the stronger drones would mate whereas in II you just
pick drones to collect semen from.  There is no real way of selecting the
strongest.  This would be for using as breeder queens.

His answer was that it didn't matter as the drone was only the vehicle to
transfer the genes you wanted and it didn't matter about who was the
strongest.

So if the drone is in the hive during winter the only real question is, is
the semen viable?  If we follow Dr. Laidlaw's theme it does not matter how
strong the drones are, then you only need viable semen for the queen to
function satisfactorily.

Trevor Weatherhead
Back in Oz but I enjoyed the snow show.

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