Hello all
Thanks for the previous responses ,will the queens be of good quality if the nucs raise themselves ,i was reading that you should not let nucs raise theyre own as they would be poor queens ,is theyre something i am missing here?
Its still to cold and windy here but when the sun shone yesterday for a few hours the three hives were flying ,so fingers crossed they are building up well.
Michael thanks for the link to your pages very good reading cheers.
Regards Eric.
The subject of emergency queens being of lower or higher quality than a grafted queen has been a controversy since beekeeping began. Many believe any non-grafted queen is superior while many others believe the opposite.
I've always believed that the bees were a much better judge of which egg would make a better queen than man is. Grafting, in queen rearing, is a crapshoot as you don't always end up with the best or even good queens. I will take an emergency queen chosen by the bees over a grafted queen from a producer any day of the week.