> It has been shown(or at least strongly implied) in the reading I have done
> that starting with younger larvae results in generally more ovarioles-down
> to about 18 hours or so anyway, and you tend to diminish the quality of
> queens as you move much over 24 hours. "Contemporary Queen Raising" By
> Laidlaw Page 18

My understanding is that these studies are in relation raising single
queens by grafting, not batches of emergency queens.  Maybe there is
no no difference, but maybe...

Besides, I personally don't consider the claimed difference to be that
significant.  For those who are in conditions where their queens are
always the limiting factor, maybe this is important, but in my
experience, in my operation, the limitations are usually the number of
supporting bees, the feed available, the weather, etc. not the queen
-- unless she is really bad.

> Randy commented that he had seen some small emergency queens. My
> observations are in line with this-that the % of emergency queens that are
> small is higher than those rasied "normally".

I have seen some, too, but usually those runty emergency queens we
recall seeing are ones raised at inopportune times by weakened hives
under stress.

The topic here is walk-away splits made under ideal conditions in
terms of population, young bees, season, etc. and I think that tends
to preclude the problem.

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