If you keep track of the weather during the mating period where do you draw the line between good enough weather and not good enough?
In a perfect situation there would be perfect weather every day between planting a cell and finding brood - giving virgin queens every opportunity to mate at their leisure. Those are the queens I want going into winter.:thumbsup:
I'm starting to see that when you buy commercial queens it is probably best not to go for early delivery.
I'm also starting to picture the crappy side of being a queen producer - customers crying for early delivery, and then it rains most of the time for a week.
Do you ship queens that might be poorly mated and make the customers happy for now - or do you pinch a weeks pay, make those people mad, and set your schedule back?
You guys who can manage all that and keep your reputations intact sure have my respect.
In a perfect situation there would be perfect weather every day between planting a cell and finding brood - giving virgin queens every opportunity to mate at their leisure. Those are the queens I want going into winter.:thumbsup:
I'm starting to see that when you buy commercial queens it is probably best not to go for early delivery.
I'm also starting to picture the crappy side of being a queen producer - customers crying for early delivery, and then it rains most of the time for a week.
Do you ship queens that might be poorly mated and make the customers happy for now - or do you pinch a weeks pay, make those people mad, and set your schedule back?
You guys who can manage all that and keep your reputations intact sure have my respect.