Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Myron Rotruck on July 25, 2005, 12:02:24 am
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Would like some information on where I could buy a AI breed Cordovan queen, I see some for 75.00 to 250.00, but were not going that route. to high for me. I got a small swarm the other day from a water meter (no less) I guess they will take up anywhere, but would like to have someone that has or have Cordovan bees to give me some information about them. Good or bad. The queen they have now is a good gentle queen, but would like your input. thanks. Myron
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I am unaware of any production priced A.I. (Artificial Insemination) or I.I. (Instrumental Insemination) produced Cordovan queens. I am aware of a few queen producers that can provide I.I. Cordovan queens. They are quite expensive.
http://www.ohioqueenbreeders.com/
As their website mentions the cordovan gene affects the color of bees that are homozygous for the cordovan gene, but only the color.
I have Cordovan Italians because I enjoy the bright yellow color of homozygous Cordovan Italians. I have raised a few queens from these Cordovan Italians. They will most likely be mated with non-cordovan drones. This will be obvious once they have produced brood. Their drones should be all-cordovan, but their workers/queens will not appear to have the cordovan coloration and should look just like my other local bees. I purchased my Cordovan Italian queens from http://www.koehnen.com/index.htm.
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the only place I know of to get a II cordovan queen is at Glenn Apiaries and they cost $250 for tested and $75 untested
http://members.aol.com/queenb95/cordovan.html
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i have read that AI queens are usually superceded more often and more quickly than normally fertilized queens. Pretty big investment.
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An inexpensive II queen is an oxymoron.