Purvis Production Queens - no more

[shinbone]

I just learned that Purvis will no longer produce production queens. They will limit their output to breeder queens only. They will also continue their educational efforts.

I bought one Purvis queen last year, and was quite happy with the service and the queen. I have seen many threads where people talk about how much they like their Purvis Goldline queens.

While they will continue selling breeder queens, this will be quite a loss to the smaller beekeepers who can not afford to buy and breed breeder queens.

Just curious - Anyone know why Purvis, who is apparently a very successful queen breeder, is getting out of the production queen business?

--shinbone

[tefer2]

Production queen=$20.00
Breeder queen=$500.00

[shinbone]

tefer2 - exactly!

I suppose there may be some producers who will buy Purvis breeder queens and then produce and sell production queens, so little guys like me may still be able to use the Goldline queens in their hobby apiaries. The production queens just won't be sourced directly from Purvis anymore.

[Jack Grimshaw]

Purvis has been doing II for quite a while and probably sees an opportunity now that Tom Glenn is retiring.

[Vance G]

Bingo!

purvis has been doing ii for quite a while and probably sees an opportunity now that tom glenn is retiring.

[gwest]

Food for thought? A few years ago Walter T. Kelley co. had a deal with Purvis Brothers to supply queens to their customers. Purchased some. good queens. Then they could not supply any more and the Purvis site was all but taken off line. Kind of a roller coaster ride? Not only out of my price range but scary also. Not many producers left. Consistency is one key to any business. I would like to see them succeed, and wish them the very best.

[standman]

Attended a queen rearing class taught by Dann last Saturday. He said he was getting out of bees because of his back. Old injuries that were becoming debilitating. Hopes to spend his time teaching others how to raise them. One of his interesting comments was that in all his years of queen rearing he was never able to keep up with demand. If I could get all my ducks in a row, I would love to ramp up my queen rearing to fill the void, especially if I could get some of his stock. I am sure someone will step up to the, shall we say, grafting table.