It seems the British have to study everything around them and bees are no exception. This article is a study of poor Queen mating and laying and possible causes.
http://www.bbka.org.uk/news/news/queenspoor-mating-and-lay.shtml
The possible effects of microwave towers caught my eye as they are all over the US.
wayne
i've seen this disscused over before. one beekeeper said, that NONE of his queens returned from mating flights, but now that they removed-moved away the powerlines he says that the queens are mating normaly
I think that Roger is too mad with his opinions. He see all problems from view of mating. Question is not about "British". I have had splended queen year. All queens have returned to hives and started laying.
"If you have a hammer all problems seems to resemble nails".
The views represent what I've been noticing from the multitude of entries within this forum. I have tried more than once to raise a response to the frequent and unexplained loss of queens and too frequent supercedure rates for purchaased queens whether in packages or solo. It is why I believe we must shy away from artificial chemical treatments and use only natural occuring ones like Oxalic acid.
I believe the future of beekeeping lies in naturopathic treatments, selective breeding (by artificial insemination if necessary) and feral survivor stock.
I hear of a lot of people having supercedure problems. I think it's the chemicals. I'm raising my own and not seeing that.