>
> >I've also researched this subject deeply, and concur with Pete.


Oops, I should have read Pete's statement more carefully.  In every
well-done study that I've seen, first-year queens tend to lay more eggs
(and are less likely to swarm or be superseded) than are second year
queens.  That said, some second year queens continue to perform quite well.

It appears to me that a queen's age is not so much chronological, but
rather a function of how many eggs she has laid in total.  Queens in
short-season areas may be good for several years.  Queens in
high-production, artificially-stimulated, year-round broodrearing
operations may burn out pretty quickly.

>Then,  these lost swarms will be housed in natural sized cavities and free
to swarm  thereby living for 5 years before becoming mite bombs.  As such
they can't really be the problem can they?

There is more to this.  Note that in Seeley's Arnot Forest that the overall
population density of colonies was quite low.  This reduces the
colony-to-colony transmission of varroa.

The limited-cavity colonies in his study never reached any substantial
population sizes, and sent out repeated small swarms.  This is one way to
tolerate varroa.  Eventually, the population will come into a dynamic
equilibrium, or oscillation, with varroa, again at a relatively low colony
density.

>Commercial operations  are not always interspersed in hobby locations.

That's certainly the situation in California.

>In your experience, if you push a colony into that first burst phase (as
you put it) earlier than nature would have provided for it naturally, will
they still settle into a stable phase when they normally would have
swarmed, or do they continue to stay in a burst phase?

Interesting question.  As far as I can tell, colony buildup is a function
of pollen availability, the queen's egglaying capacity, and the
survivorship curve of the workers.  It typically takes about 60 days for a
colony with an established broodnest to reach swarming, and another 60 days
to reach top out population.

That top out population is reached when the attrition rate of the workers
comes into equilibrium with the egglaying rate of the queen (at about 40x
the daily egglaying rate).  This is of course completely limited by pollen
availability.

One can make colonies grow at any time of the year (at least in California)
by stimulative feeding of pollen sub and syrup.  This observation suggests
that the burst phase can be maintained indefinitely, so long as the queen
holds up.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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