East Texas queens

[Kingfisher Apiaries]

I would like to share my experiences with two fantastic queen cells suppliers-Jim Lyon from South Dakota, and Tom AKA Flyman from College Mound TX.
I got my first queen cells this year from Jim Lyon. I got 2 batches of VSH cells. One was in the middle of march, and the other was at the end of May. The first batch didnt last much past July of this year, the mating conditions were poor. The last batch is what I am excited about. I was looking at them this evening. All are 1-2 stories tall, the are packed with brood, and I mean packed. They have the best patterns, the 2 best ones have 8 deep frames of SOLID brood. This summer I did pin prick hygienic tests, and in 12 hours they had most of them cleaned out. They have been busting out the seams since this summer. They have had NO TREATMENTS!!! No sugar dusting, no beetle traps, no nothing. They collectively have drawn out oodles of frames. If i can get everything on my end figured out, they will be perfect queens.

This June I got 10 queens from Flyman. I had a lot of problems on my end. Needless to say, about 60% took. They too have been going gangbusters this fall.
This past week I got some goldline queen cells from Flyman. I saw some of them hatch, and they looked like the had already been mated they were so big. The cells looked fantastic. I am anxiously awaiting to see how the queens and the cells do this winter and next year.

Both of these gentlemen have some fantastic queens. I plan to do business with them next year. I hope you do to. Just let me get first dibs.

Thanks for reading.

Mike @ Kingfisher Apiaries

[lupester]

Mike,
I would like to add my satisfaction of Tom's, aka Flyman's, queens. I received 2 Goldline Nucs from him. I run all mediums so they were 5 medium frame nucs. Unfortunately this last spring we got a late snow, in Texas which is weird, and it put all the breeders behind. I didn't get my nucs until late May. That gave the nucs a week of flow before shutdown. I had been maintaining them with 1:1 through the summer. When the fall flow hit those Goldlines took off and started packing it away. Out of the two hives I have:
1- 3 mediums of drawn comb, 2 of which has honey
1- 2.5 mediums of drawn comb, 2 of which has honey

Double thumbs up to Tom. Mike make sure you put your order in after mine!