Hawaii Queens

[TwT]

Well i just found out today that im getting georgia bees and the queens im getting are coming from Hawaii, with little grass skirts, Kona Queens, im getting them first of march, called a man here in georgia and asked him when he started to sell packages and he said march for georgia and april for the Ohio delivery, so i asked  what the price per package and he said havent set price yet but around $40.00 a package, we talked for a little while and he asked where in georgia i lived and found out he's about 2 hour drive from me, he said if i wanted to he'll call me late Febuary and tell me when to come down for 1 day and help them put packages together and he would load me up with packages for my labor plus any info or questions i might have. Told me if i had anykind of question just give him a call. well this will be fun because i always want to learn about packaging bee's, never know i might do it for myself one day. If any of you know anything about Kona Queens , you know good producers, mean, gentle, anything , tell me please.

                                Ted

[golfpsycho]

Have you visited their site? My info is mostly all second hand, but I believe Kona Queens was originally started by the Weavers.  It was one way they were planning to avoid AHB genes becoming a problem in their queen rearing operations.  There are very strict import laws in effect in Hawaii.  At some point, they sold off Kona Queens and have continued their operations in Texas, trying to flood their area with EHB drones to minimize exposure.  I haven't heard anything negative about Kona Queens.  I have read speculation that the Weavers are having some problems with their Buckfast line becoming hot in second generation crosses.  But I can't give first hand info on this either.  Guess it gives more weight to annual requeening, which has been a good policy for a long time.

http://www.konaqueen.com/

[tig]

so far all my queens come from kona.  my first batch was 60 last july, second batch was 200 last october, and my third batch of another 200 came in just last june 24th.   my first batch of 60 were prolific layers although prone to swarming.  the second batch swarmed like crazy from the nuc boxes.  those were 4 frame nucs.  they didnt lay as well as the july queens and i have many that are now drone layers and several have been superceded already.  not even a year old and i have a casualty of almost 35% from the october queens.  this june's 200 queens, i introduced into 2 frame nucs, hoping that i wouldnt have a swarming problem if there were few bees....but that was wishful thinking!  as of today i'm still chasing swarms!