Hi all
I have been criticized for digging up ancient anecdotes, and advised that in the 21st century, the old stuff no longer applies. And yet, I find that many beekeepers in the past were very keen observers of bee biology, which presumably has not changed in a million years. Regarding supersedure:

IS SUPERSEDURE GENERAL? 

May One Safely Trust Bees to Supersede Failing Queens? 

The statement has been made that when bees are left to their own devices every queen is superseded before she dies. Now in my experience I have not found this true. Indifferent health for the last two years has unfortunately compelled me to leave my bees to their own devices as far as queen-rearing is concerned, but the bees have not attended to the matter properly. I find the bees will allow the queen to go on laying until her fertility is practically exhausted when she will lay both drone and worker eggs in worker-cells. At this stage the bees, if they have any sense at all, surely ought to start queen-cells. In a few exceptional cases they do so, but they generally allow the queen to go on until she lays nothing but drone eggs. 

Only last week I examined my different apiaries for the first time since last year. Some colonies had been destroyed by worms, some had laying workers, and about eight of them had old drone-laying queens. The last time honey was extracted was on the 27th of June, and all my colonies were then in good order and, no doubt, all had queens. My belief is that all worm-eaten colonies, as well as those with laying workers or drone-laying queens, had come to grief thru the very fact that the bees failed to supersede the queen before she completely failed. 

In our Island the honey season starts with the logwood in January and closes in the middle of September. During all this long time, although the brood-nest generally gets no attention from the beekeeper, a colony seldom fails thru the want of a queen. Drone-laying queens during this part of the year are practically unknown. But during the last four months of the year when little or no honey comes in, the bees seem to lose completely all instinct for propagation, mercilessly slaughtering the very drones they were raising a few months before. They will not build queen-cells even to replace a failing queen, altho they will rear worker brood quite normally tho in somewhat less quantity. 

A. Butsch. St. Lucia, West Indies. GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE July, 1920

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