Peter - We're going to have to agree to disagree on this topic.
 
I have worked with and toured queen and package producers in just about every US state.  One of the first I saw was in the south.  They prided themselves on showing off by pinching any queen that did not match their exact color preference.  I remember a colleague from a prestigious university stating that he 'begged' them for their rejects.
 
I've seen producers who bragged on their light or golden Italians or the color of their carnies.  I once got a group of reddish queens from a producer who two years later wondered if I still had any red queens - his customers loved them
 
When asked about their queens and selection criteria - most producers listed good egg-laying patterns, good honey production,  queen does or does not build large populations before wintering, etc.   Behavior might be a choice - some producers and some customers want docile bees, some think aggressive bees are more productive.  When it comes to describing the queen - large, plump, pretty, light or dark color - it's always a beauty pageant.
 
I've often referred to my dairy background.  My father had the highest producing cows in Yellowstone county - a Holstein/Guernsey cross.   High yield with almost Guernsey butterfat levels.  He rejected cattle judging shows that ranked dairy cattle on looks, shape of udder, etc.  His commercial cattle were mutts, rigorously culled on basis of productivity - milk and calves.   
 
His only Purebreeds exceptions were his bulls.  He purchased bulls, dealing only with an old Swiss dairyman, who kept detailed records, and he preferred older bulls with proven records.  Dad could care less about cow looks.  
 
He had a good eye for productive diary cows.  If she was fat and pretty - he judged her unlikely to produce a lot of milk - arguing that that cow was putting her energy into her own fat, not milk.  Some of his best producers were down-right ugly - skinny, some even with only three productive udders ( a consequence of mastitis damage).
 
I've often seen a similar prejudice when it comes to bee queens.  A smallish or scrawny queen is pinched - yet in our research, where we don't want to change queens in the midst of a trial, I've come to learn that the skinny queen isn't necessarily a bad queen - some are long-lived with large daughter populations and good honey production.  
 
We all appreciate a pretty queen - but like with cows, I think the perception that a pretty queen is a good queen is a human bias.  Obviously, runt queens from emergency cells are probably not going to be  the best queens, but pretty, color, etc. have little to do with the overall quality of a queen in terms of desirable colony traits.
 
 
 
 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html