It has been almost two years since my last blog entry on these pages. Been busy! The good thing is I’m back with two more years of beekeeping experience. Today, I would like to share something that I’m really passionate about here at Beau’s Bee Yards. That is the process we go through to select which of our queens to graft from. In essence, which hives show the desired characteristics we are looking for . There is a long list of traits in honeybees one could select for, at least 12 -15 common ones. Everything from honey production to bee color(darker of lighter colored bees). Although it would be fantastic to produce a queen with all the traits on this long list, it would not be realistic in practice with limited labor and time. Instead, we decided to focus on a short list of four traits and once we master producing queens consistently with these four traits, we can select for additional traits later. HONEY. Although our main income from beekeeping is NUC sales, honey sales still pay