John Partin wrote: > I do think that home raised queens should produce inferior drones > compared to a queen bought from a good queen raiser. If you do not > believe this you should study genetics a little and that might change > your mind. I have a general knowledge of genetics, but I can not see why you should get inferior drones from the daughter of a good queen obtained from a good source. If you just allow your bees to requeen themselves routinely with no attempt to select for good traits you could run downhill. But many knowledgable beekeepers routinely raise their own queens and don't find the quality of their queens, thus the quality of their drones, diminishes. Tom -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugiak, Alaska U.S.A. [log in to unmask]