i’m looking forward to the responses to this one peter.  i’ve only a few short years with bees, but i have been using colony lifespan as an important criterion for breeder selection.  so far my longest lived colonies have also been productive, easily workable, and responded positively to swarm prevention so selection has been easy.

i agree with the requeening parameter, but i think the adding of brood is more of a gray area in the context of using supplemental feeds.  i say gray because the adding of pollen supplements and syrup is in one sense ‘adding brood’ because the bees will convert those resources into more bees.

i haven’t fed anything in three years nor added brood so my selection has been untainted by those potentially confounding factors.  however this year i am looking to maximize average per hive production and sell nucs so i will be considering protein supplementation during the early spring build up depending on the weather and pollen flows.

regards.
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