> What *is* in dispute is whether, in fact, emergency queens are
> necessarily generated from old larvae, and what quality can
> be expected in emergency queens raised under good conditions.

I apologise for replying to my own post, but I've been thinking:

We habitually distinguish emergency cells from supercedure cells. But,
what I ask is this: what is the difference between a supercedure
situation and and the conditions that result in emergency cells?

Not much, I'd hazard.  It's a matter of degree, as far as I can see.
Loss of a queen could be an extreme case of the 'poor queen' state that
results in supercedure.

Now, unless I'm wrong, it seems to me that 'most everyone considers
supercedure queens to be just fine -- well fed and raised by bees from
larvae of the correct age.

What I want to know then, is why do people assume that the same process
and correct results do not occur in the case where a queen disappears...

allen