It is not clear what your argument is here.
Are you claiming that you and/or your associates have productive 3 and
4-year old queens?

James ( and all)  Here is the issue.   You would have to have a known marked
queen with records that long on the hive.   That in itself is unusual these
days.  Most commercial guys don't.  and hobbyist certainly don't   that only
leaves the middle ground of quasi researchers.  Unfortunately that is the
standard we are running by.  The researchers of the mid decade who cared
enough to write their thoughts and records.   

The other huge problem is criteria,  there are no standards None, Nada Zip.
Everyone's idea of a bad queen is different, and I would add very
subjective.   Add to this the desire as mentioned that a fresh queen lays
best and is needed,  and you have an environmental change in bee keepers,
not bees.

I have many queens that I would say are 2-3 years,  but since I don't mark
its speculation.....  I also know several people who "claim" 4-5 year old
queens  who don't mark,  so are they really that old?  I seriously doubt it.
This is a perfect example of "we don't know what we don't know"


While a sterile drone layer is an easy call,  many others are not so easy to
be sure are bad.  I normally take queens that are being superceded and put
them in a nuc by themselves.   Many of them take off and do just fine very
quickly...which to me is an indicator that other things I don't understand
are going on.





Charles

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