>So there are perhaps two types of supersedure - one that happens early in a
queen's life where the colony is not happy with her for some reason, and the
other where the queen lives out a full life and is then replaced without
swarming.

An astute observation and one that I have also noticed. In the first case the new queen will start with a strike against her. For some reason, very possibly not of her own making, her performance is not satisfactory and she is replaced by a daughter. In the case that it is her own deficiency her daughter could well inherit that. In the second case she has long proved her worth and her daughter stands a good chance of inheriting that quality. In my own operation I stopped replacing well performing queens because of age long ago. I want her genes in the pool, both sons and daughters for as long as possible. I often see excellent queens come from 3 year old supercedures. Sort of letting Darwin work while I nap. 

To the larger question of egg size, grafting technique, and swarm queen quality we may be hoping to describe the perfect at the expense of the good. As Pete points out a system that has been an industry standard for many decades and that has consistently produced high quality queens may have room for minor improvements but has  long proved its merit. 

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

             ***********************************************
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