> IMHO, Why anyone would want to, or the quality of any queens that
could be produced from them, was never really part of the thread.

I thought the discussion began with "[BEE-L] late queens / colonies" on 
Mon, 23 Jul 2012 and rambled around from there under several subject lines.

In an open discussion like this, anyone is welcome to expand the topic,
and, IMO, should do so if something is being overlooked or questions 
should be raised.

The original topic had to do with starting some late colonies at an 
unspecified location.  Doing so is not a good idea IMO in the northern 
regions of North America where I keep bees, but actually all these 
considerations were, and are, part of the topic.

The matter of having good queens is central to success.  Having adequate 
drone populations is crucial to that end.

Generally, splits and queens produced while the bees are raising drones 
naturally or under stimulation will be more successful than any of 
either produced when the colonies are not raising lots of drones. 
Drones production is an indication of prosperous colonies and such 
colonies make the best splits and queens.

Although not impossible, attempting to make splits or produce queens 
when colonies are not insisting on producing drones is likely to yield 
poor results.

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