Linda, that was cool, I like that when I am going to be doing queen selection next year for breeding my own queens. The information from your book Old Timer was great too.
I know next year I am going to need queens and I really want to get into raising my own.
I have Italian and Carniolan.
Definitely the Carniolan gather more nectar and do not propolize even close to the extent that the Italians do.
I will have to be doing some deep thought into what I will raise, it is very new and unknown to me. I took a course on queen rearing, it was grafting, and that was a hummdinger!!!! I did not do very well when it came to counting how many larvae were used by the bees (I think I had many cells that didn't have a larva even in them after grafting) to make queens. But practice makes perfect, of course.
I do like the fact that the Carniolan breed has a longer tongue than the Italian and forages in cooler weather, smaller winter cluster. Pretty good attributes, but the swarmy propensity is the issue (but then maybe not too), depends on the amount of time spent on swarm prevention I guess. Oh, well, have a wonderful and beautiful day, in this great ol' world. Cindi