With reference to the commercial beekeeper who reported his hives averaging
20 moves a year and eight queens, Waldmer asked "Do his queens perish on
long trips or due to chems?"

I do not believe he was reporting on 'deaths' of queens.  I believe he was
saying how many times a year he felt it necessary to replace a queen in
order to keep hives with young, vigorous queens capable of producing large
brood nests.   Queens start to 'fail' he said, because of frequent moving,
bad mating, and chems in beeswax and otherwise.  (Some, and perhaps most, of
these guys have active chemical treatments going on 'most' of the time.)

Bees primarily forage to support their brood.  Small brood nests require
fewer foragers, aka fewer pollinators.

These guys (large pollinators) do not look for old queens.  Typically, they
install a cell in the upper part of the brood nest, preferably in a frame
packed with honey, and rely on the emerging queen to replace the existing
queen.  I have attended presentations with claims that the success rate of
this procedure exceeds 90%.


-- 
Lloyd Spear
Owner Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacture of equipment for round comb honey sections,
Sundance Pollen Traps, and producer of Sundance custom labels.
Contact your dealer or www.RossRounds.com

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************