Queen Suppliers?

[brooksbeefarm]

Having trouble getting Carniolan queens from my supplier, i ordered 10 last year so i could have them this April or May and was notified( yesterday) that i could only have 5 Italian queens if i wanted them??? This is the third year i've ordered Carni. queens from this supplier and have yet to get any and i ordered way in advance not at the last moment? I ordered 15 queens last year for this year and was told i'd be getting 10 Carni's the first or 2nd week of May and the other 5 (breed i won't mention) queens later. I believe these are good honest people, But are making there problems my problems. Anyone know of a reliable Carniolain queen breeder?? Jack

[LazyBkpr]

 I can't name any who have anything available Jack..
   My Packages were delayed one to two weeks. My Nuc's are delayed one to two weeks, and the 5 VSH Queens I ordered in January were flat out canceled..
   Not really sure what is happening..  But I am seriously considering dropping All the orders and lowering my price for cut outs to the bare minimum just to get bees.  Give up on the honey crop, make 20 or so queens and do splits to get where I need to be.
   I have seen reports of as much as 70% losses in this area so I can only guess that everyone and their brother are trying to get bees.  Sure would be a great time to be selling.
   

[brooksbeefarm]

I like selling honey at the local Farmers Market meeting new neighbors and talking to old neighbors i haven't seen in awhile. That's the main reason i buy bred queens to build hives up quicker in the spring, i may have to go back to raising all my queens in late summer and requeen in the fall? I have club members and customers begging me to start selling nucs, which would be less work than selling honey (for me anyway) so if i have to raise queens i might give it a go. All the club members that sell nucs, sell out before our season begins, I could sell all i could produce. Worked up an acre of ground yesterday evening and put it in Buckwheat this mourning, should do good, it started raining around 2:30 this afternoon.Jack
PS. my queen supplier e mailed me and said they could let me have 10 Italian queens and would have Carni's in June if it wasn't to late for me. I have trouble with Italians robbing and going into winter with to big a cluster, not so with Carni's.

[Perry]

I am getting calls almost every day now, asking if I have nucs for sale. In May?  Calls should have been made a while back, not May.
I tell them I'll put them on my list, but at this point no guarentees.
I checked over 900 queens in at the airport last night (10 were mine). I went out and pulled 10 nucs this afternoon and will introduce the queens tomorrow.
I have another 10 queens arriving next week, and then I'm hopeful the local queens will be available.
I made up my 10 nucs using 6 hives. I had to pull double nucs out of four hives they were so full. I almost wish I had ordered more queens, but who knew? It's a mugs game betting on next years crop.

[iddee]

The stories I'm hearing from the south, the queens are having a 60% failure rate this year. Make-up queens are the ones promised later, so those orders get put off or cancelled. It has been a terrible mating spring.

[LazyBkpr]

That would explain some of the delays.
   I was hoping to get over thirty this year, Winter at least 20 of them, and expand from those survivors..  As it looks now, I will not be making honey this year to reach that goal.

[apisbees]

The cold wet extended spring with the temperatures dipping down to cluster shrinking, brood killing, Keep the bees from building up like normal has caused delays. but the same weather is responsible in part for higher losses of hives so all the queen breeders are working with less hives to thy to produce more queens.

[camero7]

I have bought carni queens from the following suppliers. Good queens, ship on time.
http://www.vlwbeequeens.com/
http://www.shamrocksbees.com/queen-cells.php
http://www.fullbloomapiaries.com/