> we suddenly stand accused as an industry of being "cruel to our bees" unless we keep bees that never cluster

This sounds like another version of "Is keeping bees wrong?" (New Yorker Magazine, Aug 28, 2023). They wrote

> In apiaries, queens often have their wings clipped, to interrupt swarming (a colony’s natural form of reproduction), and are routinely inspected, and replaced by newcomers, sometimes imported from the other side of the world. Propolis—a wonderful, sticky substance that bees make from tree resin and that has antibacterial qualities—is typically scraped out of hives by beekeepers because it is annoying and hard to get off their hands. These are all dire interventions in the fabric of the colony. No wonder the bees keep dying. In a normal year, perhaps ten or fifteen per cent of bee colonies die in the winter. Last winter, America’s bees suffered colony losses of close to forty per cent, with varroa, “queen issues,” and starvation among the leading causes. 

Well, as a lifelong beekeeper, I have never clipped a queen and I can't be bothered to scrape the frames. The farthest away the queens have come from is California, which might seem like the other side of the world, but it isn't. 

PLB

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