I would have to agree with LLoyd Spear, and George Imrie that the
beekeeper's goal should be a young queen in every colony, every year.
That's the perfect scenario. The perfect world. I just feel that a
perfect world is either unobtainable, or too expensive. I have to
justify every penny I spend. Requeening colonies with seemingly good
queens is wasteful of money, and time which could be better spent
elsewhere in the operation. Keeping bees in the north is different. You
have one chance to do the job. I could examine my colonies or yours and
find colonies that need new queens - always, and every time. So, when
does it stop? I,d love to use cells in the honey supers, or some other
quick way. I don't feel the short season I have would permit it. I
certainly dont have time to nuc every colony. But, I do requeen as many
as possible. I lose 15-20% of my colonies in winter. Those are replaced
with nucs started in the spring-new queens. The bees replace 10-20% by
swarming or supercedure-new queens. I requeen 20-30% my slow and tedious
way-new queens. That adds up to 45-70% new queens each year. I think
that's pretty good. It may not be perfect, but I'll not be one of those
who lose their business by trying to run the impossible perfect
operation.  Mike