I was offered a "red pin queen", anyone have any info on what she is? I was also offered Buckfast, don't know that I want that breed. Any input is welcome.
Never heard of a red pin queen. Two thoughts come to mind.... One....this is a queen or queens, that came about by happenchance, and some beekeeper "coined" the term to market or feel special about their bees. Two....Someone has spent a few years developing a line of bees, and has named them "red pin queens". My money is on #1. Probably some combination of blend, a hybrid that came about. I would wonder if this is a selected line with specific criteria, or just a result of open mating with little control in the breeding efforts. I have some really neat looking bees from time to time. The result is usually due to a lack of control of genetics. I never thought of slapping on a fancy name and marketing them as something new. Hmmmmm...... Mutts no more! "Bjorn's Evaluated, Selected, Traits"....... better known as "BEST" bees and queens! :lol: I'll have to give this some more thought..... :?
My email answer from the breeder. "Our 50% Italian + 50% Carnolian line." I wonder how this mixture would do? He is a "breeder" and does manipulate stock. Bjorn, you may be on to something. I had some really dark honey last fall, didn't have a clue what it was. I told some people it was Fl. swamp honey and now they want to know when I am going to have more.
Customer asks..."Do you have any thisle honey?" Reply..."Sure, just as soon as I throw a label on this bottle!" :lol:
Labels are fine provided you actually don't have to verify what the label is susposed to represent. If bees free mate and not artificially insemeniated, what controls are know--aside from the hope that the drones in your yard are in better shape then the drones from feral colonies, not to much control is happenstance--would prefer a known product no guesswork. Get the bees/ queen you want rather then the queen you get. Barry
pcm writes: It is a 2008 Queen, marked red, the international marking color for that year ???? tecumseh: this possiblility seem extremely plausible to moi... at one time (a long long time ago) while making up packages when it came to installing the queens in their little introduction cage into the package the fellow that I worked for pointed out to me that the queens we were installing (and provided by one of those known names in the bee keeping industry even then) had quite evidently caught 'last years' queens while they were shaking packages or perhaps while they were making up swarm boxes. my employer was a bit miffed that someone he knew well had tried to pass a two year old (or perhaps older) queen off on him as a 'fresh' queen. the down side being that any package failures would come back for him to replace. the above I would read as a warning for all new bee keepers. no matter what the source of queens (or packages) that you might acquire take a good hard look at the queen in the package and see if indeed she does look 'fresh' before she is installed.
