# Question about which strain of queens to raise



## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I am in Western Washington which would make me qualify for raising cold, wet and weather resistant Northern Queens> Also adaptive to a long inactive period over the winter.
My 10 over wintered hives are just recently starting to lay well and become active and on the increase.
My two best hives are my Glenn apiaries inseminated Carniolan and a local swarm queen I caught last summer. My question is, if I raised a few queens for sale from these two over wintered queens, as a consumer, which would be more attractive to you and why?
A known lineage or unknown, possible Farrell source? Both are about equal in mild temperament, honey production and spring build up. VSH traits are not yet established.
Don't want to grow a bunch of 'mutt' queens if they are not popular with beekeepers, but northern survivor stock is certainly important to me.
Maybe I'll just give them a fancy name like 'Mt. Rainier Extraordinar Queens' and see what happens.LOL

My Bee Weaver queen is also about equal to these two top hives. Although I would not consider that hive to be hot in any way, I hear subsequent generations of that line can be quite hot. I will graft a few and see how they do That little Texas Queen still heads the hive and is doing very well.










I made these mini mating nucs months ago and am itching to use them! Drat my short season climate... I live near Fort Lewis McChord base and get a lot of military famlies as customers..the last one was a bee keeper from Alaska. I just laughed and said I thought I had it bad.










Thanks for your input.
Lauri
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Miller-Compound-HoneyBees-and-Agriculture/256954971040510


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## erwkkkk08 (Mar 13, 2010)

Lauri,
I have found "mutt" queens to be far superior to most "pure breds", when you allow your queens to mate with local drones most of the time the result is a unique genetic line well suited to your particular micro-climate. You can call them what you like, but in the end it's about laying performance that matters, with bees it's all about genetics, that's the name of the game, the more diverse your gene pool is, the better your odds are of having strong resistant stock. Nowadays most beekeepers know and accept this. You sound like you have things covered, I'm just thinking out loud (or in print anyway). Good luck, whatever your decision.


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## DonShackelford (Jan 17, 2012)

Speaking strictly from a marketing point of view; 
I would use the Glenn Apiaries queen for breeding since it is a verifiable quality source. In short, your credibility is enhanced by Glenn's credibility.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Lauri, what would appeal to me as a consumer would be that you were local, and I would not have to worry about shipping. As for choosing between strains, as Tom says and for his reason, the Glenn queen's offspring would likely be my choice.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

What some refer to as mutts, others like to call hybrids. I have ordered some Glenn queens in the past to be used as breeding stock and they did nicely for that but none lasted longer than a year. It is highly questionable that an II queen would have the vigor of a naturally mated queen. Consider open mated offspring of the Glenn queens as a real good starting point for your localized breeding.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

What kind of quantity are you talking about? In small quantities it doesn't even matter. You will sell your queens regardless of which you use. Personally I prefer local sources... I don't want a northern raised queen from a Matriarch that was raised down south... And secondly; I think it is questionable to profit off of somebody else's hard work; unless they issued you a license to do so.


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## DonShackelford (Jan 17, 2012)

bluegrass said:


> I think it is questionable to profit off of somebody else's hard work; unless they issued you a license to do so.


I agree with your premise Bluegrass, but in the case of Glenn Apiaries, they promote this, and will list you on their site as an open-breeder. They also request people to not buy their queens unless they plan to raise queens from them.
I'm familiar with them because I have a Pol-line coming next week. While there are no guarantees with queens, there's little downside in getting a queen with a few million dollars of government research invested, and the daughters will be mated with local stock.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Thanks for your responses.
Yes, Don is correct about Glenn promoting other apiaries raising queens grafted from their stock as local queens. When I was looking for quality queens last year, and many people mention their stock was grafted from these queens. So I thought I'd just go to the original source for some of my stock. 
In my short season area, it seems I am quite limited to what I can do with the bees. Too short to raise many nucs to sell, I get a decent honey crop. I am not near any commercial crops which is good and bad. I have a limited amount of a variety of nectars coming from wild plants but virtually no chemical or pesticide contamination. But honey production is not my interest..more a wonderful byproduct at this point.
My point being:
raising queens is not only where my interest lies, but may be my only viable option for making a bit of money. 
I have never grafted a queen, this will be my first year doing so. I have only played with some walk away nucs and harvested some caged virgin queens in a somewhat crude and unusual manor..not much chance I will taking unfair advantage of Glenn apiaries hard work. My main goals this year is to raise enought queens for my fall requeening needs and try several different methods of raising queens to establish the best methods for me and get the experience I need to go into some kind of production in the future. My queens in the future will be derived from the queens I raise this year and by the time I am in production to sell any large amount they will all be hybrid overwintered stock, but with the Glenn genetics, more specifically, VSH traits, as an important continuing factor.
I will probably have some extra queens to sell this year too if I am lucky..need to have a plan for them too.


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## DonShackelford (Jan 17, 2012)

Sounds like we're in similar situations Laura,
I jumped back into bees this March with 25 nucs. I plan to just grow my bees this year with no honey sales. Since I've made the investment in a Glenn queen for my own use, and also since I live in a city of a million people with no local queen producers, I have been considering becoming one. It does appear to be the lowest cost investment for return (excluding labor). I'm too far north to provide spring queens, but think there is probably a market for summer & fall queens.
There is sure a wide variety of queen rearing cell cups, holders, and other "tinker toy" parts. I plan to peruse the queen rearing forums here to find the most simple and economical ways to fill a cell bar frame. Like yourself, this will be my first grafting experience, but as the Glenn's say, anyone can master it with an hour or two of trial and error. I just need a great big magnifier


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Hi Don, have you purchased a illumination magnifier yet? I just bought one from Amazon.


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## seal62 (Apr 17, 2011)

'Mt. Rainier Extraordinar Queens' ...luv it .


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## DonShackelford (Jan 17, 2012)

That's a very nice magnifier Laura, but I'm a cheapskate and will probably get the one at harbor Freight for $7.99


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## spunky (Nov 14, 2006)

Don:
Down hwy 37 in Morgantown , Graham Bees produces what they call " Indiana " queens. I cant attest to any of their products, also you might want to look up SE Indiana beekeepers web site for some contacts , 

regards
Brad


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## DonShackelford (Jan 17, 2012)

Thanks for the tip Brad, I had heard they had closed shop, but I just went to their website and they say they are going part-time, not closing their doors. I was pleasantly surprised to see they are sold out of nucs and packages already. Leaves a little room for me in a year or two ;-)

Laura, something to consider; In going through the queen forums, Michael Palmer makes a valid point that if the goal of raising queens is to sell for profit, that a more lucrative way would be to go ahead and make nucs out of them to sell in the spring. Since we don't live in sunny Florida, this seems like sound advice.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I love making nucs! Hee hee, but am still building up my stocks, and plan to keep most of my nucs made this year for myself for increases and winter losses. No doubt I will have nucs in the future available for sale. 
I planed to have some nucs for sale this year, but made my nucs too late last fall and the yellow jackets pretty much wiped them out. Hang your head, Live and learn I guess. It was hard to watch them basically get eaten alive and not be able to do much about it. 
Need to make nucs earlier, keep entrances smaller, put out yellow jacket traps earlier, etc.

The good thing is that those nucs drew out 100 deep frames for me and filled them with honey before they got attacked. Having drawn frames is such a huge advantage. I fed the fall nucs syrup, so the honey in the frames is not harvestable and it has fed these new nucs well.

The problem with this seasonal bee keeping is I can't wait to try again! Been waiting all winter to get my hands on them.
Heres my new crew for this year. I had about 10 overwitered hives and bought 20 nucs to add to that:










These nucs were beyond five frames..they were the most beautiful, healthy packed nucs I have ever seen. So full, I was almost surprised not to see swarm cells and am keeping a close eye on them. What luck to be included in this purchase.
I inspected my nucs after 10 days, starting with my weakest one and immediatly put a second deep on the lot. The 10 frames in the weakest one was already packed with bees. If I had queens now I could already make some nucs, but it is still too earlyfor grafting-no drones yet in my area. And my order from Russell APiaries for a few queens looks like it will be very questionable if and when it will be sent. It was ordered the first part of march for late April delivery. 2 buckfast, 3 sunkist cordovan and 2 russian/italian hybrids. with all the bad comments about the russians, I am almost sorry I ordered these, but will give them a try anyway. With all the good comments about Russell I imagine he would not raise anything that was not worthy. But with the storm/tornado damage I can guess my Russell queens may be a long time coming.
Here are those nucs after about 5 days of installation


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

+1 on Glenn apiaries. I struggled with local "mutts" for several years. I'm now breeding from both Pol-Line and pure VSH Glenn stock and have had great success.


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## seal62 (Apr 17, 2011)

And secondly; I think it is questionable to profit off of somebody else's hard work; unless they issued you a license to do so. Hold on a sec . I worked hard for my money , just like anybody else . If you see any queen for sale in the ads here it says where the bees came from and how they were mated . That is the reason i buy from them . That's like saying I buy a bull and it cant breed my cows . Example ...sooper yooper survivor queen open mated with kelley's hygienic , sunkist , and any ferals fast enough to catch her ..25 bucks . Yea,,,that bees coming ..not for sale ( ill pass out a few to my buds for testing ). My point is ..one can just go to the source ? Heres the breeder list and terms . http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...liers-list-1st-edition&highlight=breeder+list


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## DonShackelford (Jan 17, 2012)

Nice picture Laura. I got 25 nucs on 3/12/12, they seemed like they had been in the carboard nucs a little too long but started coming around pretty quickly. Drawn comb is definitely an asset I could use more of. I've been splitting the brood with foundationless frames and am building up nicely. I have 10 Kelley Italian queens coming in a few days to make more nucs from. I think I'm ready population wise. It will be interesting to compare the 25 Carnolian hives with the new Italians. I should end up with my own hybrid mix.
I saved all the carboard nuc boxes. I find it very handy to carry a couple with me. Lightweight and just the right size to transport a few frames of bees.
I have no experience with the Russians, but Kirk Webster swears by them and runs over 1,000 way up northeast. My prior experience with bees was all Italians. I understand they aren't the best for mites, we'll see.


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## johns bees (Jan 25, 2009)

Laura where did you purchase your nucs from ? I live in Eatonville and I am looking for a local source for nucs and queens
thanks Johns Bees


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I get my bees from Harvord Robbins, but he is sold out for this year.Actually he is over sold and he is sweating it. 
Not sure of any other local supplier.Sorry I couldn't help.
I may have a few summer nucs and queens for sale, but not for a while. You should stop by can see what I have. I am right off HY 702 and 8th ave south.
253-843-1319


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## Mosherd1 (Apr 17, 2011)

jim lyon said:


> What some refer to as mutts, others like to call hybrids. I have ordered some Glenn queens in the past to be used as breeding stock and they did nicely for that but none lasted longer than a year. It is highly questionable that an II queen would have the vigor of a naturally mated queen. Consider open mated offspring of the Glenn queens as a real good starting point for your localized breeding.


I have actually had a bit different experience, I just passed one year on my II Glenn breeder and grafted from her again last week. This is my second season grafting from her and she is still looking great. Nice pattern, etc. Her hive does not produce anything for honey but of course that is not her purpose. Her daughters are kicking butt so far and all survived winter, except for 2 nucs which starved. I went with the pure VSH dark. She may be superceded in the next few months but anything I graft from her moving forward is a bonus for me. I did not expect her to make it past last fall.


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