Better Queens

Excellent book on raising bee queens. This has helped with me raising queens as I am a new-bee to the hobby . Easy to understand and very straight forward even for the layman or experienced. Easy reading and very informative on how to go about setting up and what to expect for results.

Great insight sharing into better queen rearing.

Good material - very poor pictures

This book highlights & advocates the "Notching" method for queen rearing as a it produces superior queens to the more common grafting method. I have to say my experience confirms notching does, in fact yield a better quality queen. Nearly every grafted queen I've installed (from various suppliers) has been superseded in short order. Notching mimics the supersedure that the bees will naturally do.The book is written in a "plain spoken" first person manner that is enjoyable to read.I understand the grainy old pictures are there for authenticity. But it'd sure be nice to have new crystal clear pictures to help understand some of the information covered. Hopefully they'll consider this for a future "Revised/Updated" edition?

Apparently Michael Bush is the transcriber for this book as Jay Smith would be well over 100 years old if alive; and is listed by email address in the Transcriber's preface. As this is supposed to be a "how to" book, I think a purchaser is entitled to expect to receive an email response from Michael Bush concerning a couple of pertinent questions. I assume he is collecting some fee for being the transcriber--and I am disappointed in his lack of responsiveness.