I am seeking information related to what the
the current consumer demand is, percentage wise
for sales of each strain of bee you sell.
And what trends you might be noticing.
Opinions are fine, what are you noticing
as far as demand is concerned?
I know someone from the bee club who started raising queens as a buisness their first year raising queens.scary. At any rate they put a simple add in bee magizine and their phone is ringing non-stop. I call that a pretty big demand.
The US currently purchases around 740,000 queens each season... that is down from the 90's when they were purchasing around 1.2 million... the economy, failing government "silver bullets", growing rate of hobbiests, aging producers leaving the industry to retire, rapid losses to new pests putting operations out of business, and a lack of commercial operations that produce consistent queens have led to the decline. However, a large influx in purchases over the past two years has been noted due to honey production reaching record lows as e-queens from walk-away splits are being superseded more often and swarming repeatedly due to lack of diversity in stocks coupled with genetic influence from government program bees that are acclimated to climates not found in the US.
Northern and mid-western apiaries are tending more towards the darker strains, while southern and western apiaries are still more prone to purchase Italians.
Hope this helps.
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