Hi:

Ok, I've admitted to lumping terms, and I think we all agree that queen
supercedure and emergency replacement involve somewhat different processes.
From the perspective of colony reproduction, they both represent a change
and either may cause a break in the brood cycle.  Supercedure does not
ensure that the old queen is still laying when the her replacement takes over.

So, having agreed with Allen Dick, I'd like to start a new topic.  I'm
trying to find sources of information (hopefully with a citation) regarding
beekeeping statistics for countries other than the U.S.  I'm looking for
records of the numbers of beekeepers, numbers of colonies, honey produced,
numbers of queens produced and sold, etc.  I'd also like to be able to
identify numbers of beekeepers who have more than 100 colonies, move
colonies for pollination, or cover large areas (100s - 1000s of KMs or
Miles).  In the U.S., I can find much of this from the state Agricultural
Statistics, and fill in the gaps by contacting queen producers, etc.

I have difficulty finding the sources of this information for European
countries.  I've contacts in New Zealand and can probably run one to ground
for Australia.

I'm trying to get a better profile of beekeeping worldwide.  With your
help, I can pull this together in a report that can be published both here
and in a bee journal.  Kim, I assume you'd be willing to publish it in Bee
Culture and either have it published here or on your web page?

Online data sources would be great.  If in a language other than English,
I'm going to need a translater.  Where possible, I want to find data for
which there is a citation.  Some data points may have to be estimates --
but if so, I need to get the estimate from someone who have in depth
knowledge of the subject.  For example, U.S. stats don't cover queen
production in all states, but the major queen producers know how many
queens are produced and sold each year -- at least they can provide a
reasonable estimate.

Thanks for your help.

Jerry