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Jay Smith's 'Better Queens ' lays out the events that led a prominent queen breeder to move away (after decades) from grafting to a method based on total confidence that queens raised from eggs were better. Now, there's stuff in that book which doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny and of course...

When I first read of Moritz's research on the royal families I was mistaken (due to the way it was being put across by the people reporting it) into thinking that it was a positive selection method, Delaplane's explanation turned that idea on its head. Has anyone read Moritz's 'Dark side of the...

Delaplane's take on the matter:

This is the fascinating thing, a very high degree of selection at a time when under most pressure. I think there was some research which suggested that eggs laid in cups were on average heavier than those in ordinary worker cells, I can't remember where/who that claim came from but if it were...

Thank you, I doubt I'll be back to full dexterity and strength before the end of the season, maybe never, that's not really my plan but it's got to be kept in mind to avoid a meltdown if I don't retrieve full use.

Yesterday... two buses to hand therapy clinic followed be a bus out into the countryside and just short of a ten mile circuitous walk to check on two apiaries that I haven't seen since messing my hand up. Got to admit I did start to think that there "must be easier ways...." then I got to the...

The thing I find odd is that this three day egg selection seems to exclude eggs laid directly into queen cups in favour of later, worker selection.

I'll read link tonight, I mentioned Delaplane's lectures in particular as he has a very negative view of these royal families and makes the argument that beekeeper grafting drastically removes the opportunity for these, as he says, parasitic lines to perpetuate themselves.

It's fairly widely excepted I think that they always know something that we don't, bit like the business of workers vibrating on certain queen cells as they approach maturity, there must be a reason. There are a couple of lectures by Keith Delaplane on YouTube (apologies for not having a link...

Removing all the drones makes no sense at all to me. Everything you've written so far points to an incredibly healthy colony which probably doesn't need any help from you at present.

Another possibility is mouse/moth eaten combs rebuilt with drone cells to give a natural drone population which *might* be higher than what you normally see in your hives.

Well I'm neither qualified or interested in judging who's sensible or not. Plenty of room for everyone.

Well, my initial scepticism has just evaporated after a quick net search for wax preserving of fruit.

Great article

Slightly veering off topic, does anyone know when the international colour code was officially established? Although it's been in use for a long time it didn't appear to be so widely used by ordinary (?) beekeepers as it is today until relatively recently. I seem to remember tipex being one of...

This post beats the original post, something I didn't expect to see in the same thread! 🙂

Yes, I imagine that is what he meant although I don't know how he could possibly know with such precision

Finman said lots of 'stuff', that certainly sounds like a direct quote.

Two questions here. Yes they can be reused but as for suggesting that's what you do.... I'd be more inclined to suggest you cull the combs and invigorate the bees by getting them drawing new comb but of course this is only a suggestion.

Difficult to make hard and fast rules with biology. Some clearly will/do result in good queens but I've seen enough good queens superseded in their first year to be dubious of emergency queens.