Allen Dick wrote > On the other hand -- amazingly -- there is *nothing* quantative on the topic > of the quality of emergency queens, and no obvious bad effects from > emergency queens raised in season by good colonies. Well let me add my anecdotal information. 20 years ago I tried the spilt method as I was not going to pay for queens; let them raise their own. (Maybe some of my Scotch blood coming to the fore.) I split from good hives (subjective evaluation) in spring and got poor returns. Plenty of drones around. The majority of those that did survive turned out to be tourist hives i.e in migratory terms hives that were taken around the country side for a look see but did not produce much honey. I ended up buying some queens to re-queen and then got good results. Tried splits again the next year with similar reuslts. So I gave up and kept to purchasing queens. > Seems to me that the question is of prime importance. Every beekeeper who > has more than a few hives, and more than a few years experience, has > emergency queens at some point or another for various reasons. Yes I get them and when requeening, I often find that it is the self set (superceded) queens that are heading poor colonies. Yes there are exceptions but not often. > Back to the topic. Seems to me that there are good studies on at least most > of those points. And, I cannot see what proof is needed when bees arrive > dead, die on introduction, are rejected by the bees, etc. etc. Dead on arrival is certainly a reason for poor performance and poor acceptance. Die on introduction - why? Queen or hive? Rejected - fault of queen or hive? Where is the proof? We know the end result but are we interpreting the right cause? I know beekeepers who now admit that when they introduced queens to their hives, they had high nosema counts. Reality tells us that we often re-queen poor performing hives. Why were they poor performing? We have ceratin species of trees in Australia that when beekeepers are working them, the introduction rate for queens is poor. This includes bought queens or queens raised by the beekeeper. All real but we know the results but not the reasons. > Therefore, I am very curious. Obviously, it is in the interests of those > who make their money by raising and selling queens (and advertise in > magazines) to study and promote use of those queens, and in the meantime > trash the queens that any beekeeper can raise I hope you are not including me in your above example. My often expressed quote is that if you have a method that works for you why change? So if the split method works for you, stay with it. So don't use a broad brush to tar everyone that rasies questions contrary to your opinion. I am turning away orders for queens so I don't have to malign others to get orders. > We both can see that there are many risks and considerable costs associated > with relying on purchased queens, since there are so many people of varying > abilities, including the purchasing beekeeper, in the process, and many > places for things to go wrong Agree fully. As I said before we are dealing with nature and you have pointed out people's ability, including both the queen breeder and the beekeeper. If it was easy, everyone would be a beekeeper and what would the price of honey be then? Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::