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    I hear what you are saying about the commercial italians drowning out all other notes in the song. They didin't show up til nearly June where my bees are. As soon as I have drones about to emerge, I am going to try to do some of the Mdasplitter.com protocol and see first if I can beat the commercial guy and second if I can actually raise queens. My beekeeping is about learning and having fun this time. IF I could make the protocol work, I can see me selling bees instead of honey. I don't know how much AHB I have to worry about. The bees here are coming out of Northern California off Almonds not from Texas. If I can't escape the drones, i will just have to buy queens to change my color back every three years. Did I tell you I used Craigs list to sell honey and it was a definate hit? Search Honey for sale in Great Falls and see what worked for me. Feel free to plagarize if you want. I need to redo it now, it is far down the page. Vance

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    Happy New Year Mike, We haven't managed to have a winter yet here and all colonies still alive. I am getting all hot on raising queens this spring. When in your experience have you had drones available and what have been your swarm dates? Hope this finds you well and not too cold. I saw your bee source listings again. That is a lot of work! I am sticking with my Sunrise Apiary nucs from Spokane area. Just don't know who will haul them. My youngest daughter is hatching a baby in Billings near that time and I won't want to go to Spokane! My idea of getting more nucs was so I would have bees to split to give homes to the expensive Russell queens I have coming in May. If it keeps up like this, I really won't need the insurance. Best to you and yours in the new year!

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    This is Vance Gilbraith in Great Falls. What a clover year! I hope you are in the middle of it! I find I have a mediocre location. I am looking for others that I can register for next year. I have mad splits twice basically using your queen castle made into a 3 way and am up to a dozen colonies. I ordered ten high priced supposedly cold weather queens from Russells in Mississippi for next May. Since I can't bank on wintering well enough to split and use them I am going to order another dozen nucs and possibly have thirty colonies next year. I have to justify that too big extractor I drove to Bismarck to pick up! It looks like I will get some crop this year. When it stayed cold so late, I basically put the going foundationless on hold and bought four hundred of the 4.9mm plastic frames from Mann Lake. I got unwaxed which is a considerable saving and haggled on the freight. I now have two distinct sizes of workers. Vance
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