Breeder Queen versus a "regular" queen?

[Bean]

Why is it better to use a purchased breeder queen for queen rearing, rather than a queen that was purchased from someone who produces their queens from a breeder queen?

[Chef Isaac]

I think it matters depending on how serious you are into breeding. If you sell your queens or this is your buisiness, than yes, it is good to get a breeder queen.

But for the backyard beekeeper wanting to raise some queens, it is not nessasary to spend the money. Just find a hive that has the traits you like be it honey production, hygenics, temperment, etc. and than graft from there.

[Michael Bush]

Breeder queens are always evaluated over some period of time and often are II. It's not necessarily "better" but the results are more predictable.

[wayacoyote]

Bean,
Also, there's a lot of mongrelization going on in my personal view. The first bees introduced were black germans as I understand it. Recently Italians seem to be the breed of choice. Then we try Russians. It is getting harder and harder and, I feel comfortable saying, nearly impossible to find a pure race in the wild. Some in Europe are working hard to preserve the historic genetic lines. And each time a neighbor buys an out-of-town queen, your breeding efforts are further muddled.

So having a breeder queen with a pedigree has some significance to keeping the races distinguished where their individual characteristics can be recognized and exploited. (I'll give you a moment to reflect on the various dog breeds and their characteristics.)

Now, on a totally different approach, I also see validity to breeding from totally feral bees. There's a breed of wild dog found in the Carolinas that developed itself as a recognized breed. Assuming microevolution is at work, aggressively breeding from strong feral stock should result in bees who are more qualified to work a geographic area than bees outside that geographic area. Straightly put: not all areas experience the same types of flows, the save severity of weather.

For either approach, pedigree is the focus. One is a pedigree of garanteed known genetics (AI). Another is a pedigree of garanteed unknown origins (not crossed with recently immigrated bees by mating in vastly remote locations).

Waya

[wayacoyote]

I'll add that, as Michael put it, the breeder queens are always evaluated over some period of time, but the conditions underwhich they are evaluated may not match yours as a beekeeper.
Waya

[BerkeyDavid]

IMO Genetics, genetics, genetics. If I get a breeder queen it will be an II queen. Other queens will have bred randomly so you don't really know what you are getting unless from isolated yard.

[Bean]

Thank you all for your very informative answers.