While interesting, I don't see how this survey can be conducted without very crisp definitions of "colony" and "lifespan".

From the recent comments, it appears that you all are aiming for a definition based on genetic continuity.  That is, you can add treatments and food as long as you don't add a queen, eggs or brood.  But that's still not exactly right since your definition so far allows for supercedure with (presumably) natural mating which adds genetic content.  So maybe the definition is merely maternal genetic continuity?

But that still doesn't properly account for a swarm/split.  Under your definitions, if I started a colony today via imported package and split it two years later, are they both two years old?  Or did the age of one drop to zero?  If so, which one and why?  The known maternal genetics of both are still at two.  

Does the location matter?  Is the colony that stayed in place two years old but the one that's moved the "newborn"?  If so, how much of a move does it take to qualify?  And if you introduce movement as a qualifier at all, does that mean that a colony transported for pollination gets reset to zero just by the move?

So for the purposes of this survey, what exactly will you define a "colony" and what exactly defines its "birth" and "death" (and maybe a third category of conditions/actions that cause it to become excluded after the fact)?
Mike Rossander  

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