> > >Furthermore, Tarpy and Delaney are not trying to tell you what is good or > not. They are trying to show what factors cause queen failure. Give them > credit for doing the real science. > I agree, although I'd change Pete's wording to say that they are trying to *find* the factors. They look for correlations between queen performance and measurable characteristics, and test hypotheses proposed to explain poor performance. So far, such research has come up with interesting results. Keep in mind that large part of scientific progress involves refuting attractive hypotheses and chasing down dead ends. And also in (sometimes serendipitously) discovering things that no one had even thought of (yes, there are some intriguing as yet unpublished findings). >I will take the experience of any of the breeders who are picking the best of the best, year in year out The breeders breed for heritable traits, and then try to produce the best phenotypes (good laying queens). As Steve Taber used to say, he'd rather use a well-reared queen of second-rate genetics than a poorly-reared queen of the best genetics. In this discussion, we've been talking about queen rearing, time of caging, and post-shipping performance, not genetics. Oops, I now see that Dick did bring up genetics. This is an entirely new can of worms, since any daughter of the best breeder can only carry half the genes of the mother queen, plus the genes of only one of the drones with which her mother mated. Thus, the performance of the daughter's colony may be considerably different than that of the colony headed by her breeder mother. Such differences can be minimized by, as Pete points out, breeding for consistency in an operation. >Even here, many say a queen lays best her second year I've heard that a number of times, but hard data tend not to support that claim. >... and different lines lay differently based on outside influences. Carnis for example in my experience will not respond until natural pollen and nectar is avalible.... Russians even more so.. The Carnies and Russians are well known for being more environmentally responsive to pollen income than are commercial Italian lines. > > >Beekeepers are notorious for playing follow the leader, and going on > "what works for me." Science wants to figure what is really going on under > the hood. They do not claim to be "expert beekeepers" any more than you > claim to be a scientist. > Very well said, Pete! The best bee researchers seek out experienced beekeepers for advice and feedback. >Someone has compared the sudden checking of the work of a laying queen, with the shipment of a cow, which is a heavy milker, without drawing her milk for several days. Neither can be expected to be as good again. Such a statement is exactly why I question Pellet's opinion on this subject--he presented a poor analogy. A cow comes into milk production upon giving birth, and then temporarily ceases once the calf is weaned. She can then come back into production after being "freshened" by bearing her next calf. This is completely different from a queen bee, who can easily start and stop laying in response to pollen availability, winter shutdown, or swarming. Again, I question Pellet's statement that caging a queen in full lay in some way damages her, until I see some supportive evidence, rather than "stories." -- Randy Oliver Grass Valley, CA www.ScientificBeekeeping.com *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html