Hardest part of queen work down here is dealing with drone sources. With 100k colonies leaving almonds every spring and arriving here for the summer grind it gets tough to find spots where you arent getting some overlap with those pollination colonies. Id think its a little easier on that front up there. Not that many years ago only a handful of bigger outfits operated up there but I've heard that too has changed in recent years as things got saturated down here. Do you happen to know if the UP is still the big producer of birdsfoot trefoil seeds for US? Decades ago a beekeeper named Ray Buell, he was the largest guy in state at time, use to cross the bridge every summer to go to pollination for it. I thought out in the middle of UP but not really sure. Just remember him telling stories of going across the bridge and extracting trefoil honey which has a unique smell

Just getting into the bee keeping thing this year. Made 9 of the insulated Layens long hives that will hold up to 33 extra deep frames. I plan on using only local ferrel bees that I catch in swarm traps. Got a late start trying to trap them this year ( May- July) and caught 5 swarms. I just finished 20 swarm traps to put a hurting on them next year. Gonna see how they winter in the insulated hives this year. If they make it till next spring I plan on building 6-10 more long Langstroph hives that will hold 40 frames apiece.

Also with swarms your getin the old queen. never know if she will make it through the winter. Re queeing may be beneficial.

JMO, late summer/fall is the time to requeen. I like a queen hatched post equinox because she is less likely to swarm than a spring queen in her second season.