Breeder Queens??

[bxtplus]

A question of anyone raising queens in the Northeast.... Besides your survivor queens, what line of bees from Glenn apiaries have you seen the most promising results from? In the past, Ive had some great bees from their pure Carniolans in the past.

[camero7]

I've had good luck with Sue Colby queens from Full Bloom. Trying the new line Carni/Caucasian now. I'm hopeful they'll produce a little better. Also had good luck with Velbert's Russians. My best bees are from the Glenn VSH line but some winters they don't survive.

[MWillard]

I also had some Glenn breeders. Specifically I had a VSH dark and a VSH x Carni cross.

I found the VSHxCarni cross to be very hot. You couldn't even look at the breeder box without them sending you a message. The daughters we produced were a little hotter than I would have liked them to be. We stopped using the VSHxCarni right away once we realized how non user friendly they were. Not too sure what the situation was, but several of us here in VT were part of a State queen rearing group and we all received breeders from Glenn. The overall takeaway from several of us was that the Glenn stock were much too hot for our liking.

To open a breeder hive with 9 frames and have 100+ bees jump in your face and try to sting you in every imaginable place is not what I would say is ideal, not to mention they were very runny. Needless to say, that breeder was ceremoniously dispatched.....

I called Glenn to mention this fact and they just said, "Oh that can happen"......

The dark VSH were fine. The breeder overwintered here in northern VT without any issues. The daughters from the dark VSH were really strong nucs in the spring (overwintered on 4 and 8 frames). Good population and early spring build up.

This year we have some of Sue Cobey's carni stock through Honey Run Apiaries. The daughters we've produced haven't been evaluated yet, we should know more next spring. Other than saying they are beautiful dark and tiger queens, I don't have much to report.

[Skinner Apiaries]

Ive had hot bees from glenns too. Adam finklestein's are gentle, and have a beautiful pattern. I highly highly recommend his stock.

[Mustang]

This year we have some of Sue Cobey's carni stock through Honey Run Apiaries. The daughters we've produced haven't been evaluated yet, we should know more next spring. Other than saying they are beautiful dark and tiger queens, I don't have much to report.

I have Honey run apiaries queens and the daughters have been good and not hot for me. thay don't slow down on brood as much as I would like in the summer.I have had glenn carni hot hot when you have to walk away from a 5 frame box thats to hot for me.

[Riverratbees]

I currently have 4 nucs for sale with the cordovan italian queen from Glenn apiaries and I use no gloves when working them. Survivor bees no complaints here a very pretty queen.

[bxtplus]

It sounds as if the addition of the VSH has changed Glenn A pure carniolans from 10 years ago. I am tying to get a handle on the best of the breeder queens out there expecting to bring in new blood next spring. As I recall, when Miksa added the VSH line into his program, many of his bees were rather testy. I have one of those queens (2 years old) and they will fly up no matter how gently I open the inner cover. My gentlest bees were NWC from Strachan. Unfortunately my survivor hive only went through 3 years without treatments. I am thinking ( and hoping breeders are as well) we now need to be seeking for some form of resistance to Nosema ceranae as well.

[AstroBee]

Sorry, not in the Northeast, but I've used Glenn queens the past two years. Honestly, I've had mixed results from the pure VSH lines. However, the Glenn Pol-Line queens are fantastic. Gentle, great producers, and nice brood patterns - really nice bees.