One of the recommendations that several of our experience beekeepers have made in various meetings is that it's a good idea to replace the queen in a hive every year. A queen can survive for much longer than that but nature prefers young queens, so it's a good idea to provide your hives with a young queen in the fall so she can be ready to build up quickly in the spring.

Right now there is at least one guild member who is starting to raise his own queens, but no source (as far as I know) of queens for sale in Philadelphia. So where do you get these new queens?

One good place to look is the PSBA newsletter that is sent out every month. If you're not a member of the PSBA (Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association) go on over to their site and join up.

Here are a few links to some other Queen suppliers who are on-line that I've heard of.

• Bjorn Apiaries - located near Philly in Dillsburg and run by Mike Thomas. Mike spoke at the March meeting. He raises queens and sells nucs that are particularly well adapted to our area.


• Singing Cedars Apiary - I just heard about these guys yesterday. They sell 'Survivor Queens' bred from overwintered colonies and characteristics that are adapted to northern conditions.

Those are all the links I have now. If you sell queens and want to be listed here let me know at propaganda at phillybeekeepers.org.