Northern Queens

[swarm_trapper]

I got to thinking (a bad thing) I wounder if a queen raised in the north would produce and winter better in the north I did some reserch and found out that I was right so were is a queen produser that rears queens in the north? and early enough to buy in april???

[WineMan]

You will be hard pressed to find many selling any here in MI. Check out James Burke on this board. I recall he is raising and maybe selling or trading some.

Kirk Webster was selling them in past years....he is from a similar northern climate and mainly used Buckfast. Not sure if he is still selling them or not. Ask Clayton he probably knows him.

I would pass on trying to get any from the north in April though. Wait until later.

[Michael Bush]

I buy them from Ontario from www.beeworks.com but you can't get them in April.

[tarheit]

I know of at least one in Ohio, Stahlman Apiaries - http://www.gobeekeeping.com/wstahlman.htm

And perhaps I'll throw my hat in the ring next year. I've raised and sold a small number this year, and hope to increase next year.

The difficulty raising queens in the north is that it simply can't be done as early as in the south. Mid april is a reasonable start date for availability here, but depends greatly on the weather.

There are also a couple of breeders in ohio, but they only sell breeder queens. One of the things they do look at when selecting queens is overwintering success. Of course they sell their queens to several producers in the south, so it's possible to get early queens with northern genetics from southern locations.