> From:    Jerry J Bromenshenk <[log in to unmask]> 15-20% of the queens
 > superceding within any year in any apiary, during the pre-mite years, were
 > common.  And this was in operations that re-queen yearly or at least every
 > two years.  Small research hives, post-mite years, with mite treatment and
 > aggressive inspection - supercedure drops to 5-10% (new queens) - after we've
 >  culled for the initial queen rejections, etc.
 >
Some data on the subject from northern Europe:
This year I had 6,5% of the hives having a F2 queen. Previous years around 8% of
the hives had supersedure queens. But it's difficult to compare with other
places with another climate and longer brood rearing periods. My queens produce
a lot of eggs in a short time, on lower latitudes queens will lay for a longer
time at a lower rate per day. Those of my queens that supersede are almost all 2
years old and about to be changed anyway. Exception is a few that get damaged by
the workers during introduction, and thus changed same year if I don't see it.

 > From:    T & M Weatherhead <[log in to unmask]> Studies here in Australia
 > have found that up to 30% are not there after that time also.

I would think that is due to the continuos egg laying all around the year the Oz
queens will have to perform, comparing with the up to 8 months they just "hang
around" here.

A few words about my experience with supersedure/swarming. Some years ago when I
didn't have so many hives I didn't use excluders. There were several reasons,
like more honey, less investment in material. At the time I wasn't into
breeding/selecting deep enough to be able to avoid swarm control. We have a too
short time window here to be able to split hives and have them build up again
before the honey flow, so we got to keep them together somehow through the
swarming period and into the flow. Usually this means checking for
swarm cells every 10 days. When doing this you learn a lot about how bees behave
and what to look for.

As I said we have a short and intense season. Bees build up very fast and the
queen is laying where there is space. In the build up phase the queen strive to
move upwards and usually lay in the third box before swarm strength. Early in
the spring bees start to make cell cups, you can see them easily on the bottom
bars. Those cell cups between the second and third box was the place to look for
swarming. The first eggs would be found there, then the queen move down the hive
as she lays eggs in the cell cups present on her way to the bottom box. There
she will reduce her egg laying (workers stop feeding her?) so she will be able
to fly in the swarm. (Another way of swarm checking is to look for eggs in the
second brood box.)

It's possible to judge the swarm risk even before there is eggs in the cell
cups. The cell cups have quite a large opening when they are first made. When
the workers think it's swarm time they start to reduce the opening of the cell
cup to worker size (queen measure the cell entrance to decide if it's a worker
or drone cell) and it's possible to see the new white wax they use to make them
worker size. Once you learn to look for those details it's easier to judge what
hives are probable to swarm.

Nowadays I use excluders, breed queens that don't swarm, and don't go around
disturbing bees all summer:-)

Regarding supersedure; I usually find a few cells in the centre of brood nest.
Swarm cells are found in the periphery of the brood nest, and often a larger
number. Guess bees want swarm queens not to be to close as they often keep them
alive in the cells during bad weather waiting for a sunny day. Several times
when I opened a hive that prepared to swarm I would find a number of virgins
hatching out and running around. They couldn't signal to each other anymore when
I took frames out so they thought it was time to emerge.

But it was supersedure I was talking about. I found two different scenarios. One
when the old queen is present until the new young queen starts to lay and prove
she is able to head the colony. The other when the virgin kills the old queen
after hatching out. The first is often happening with bees that are bred for
gentleness, the second with mongrels. Aggressiveness seem to influence this too,
or it could be other traits. A few times I had both mother and daughter winter
over and lay together in the same cluster in spring, but this is very rare. Some
weeks or months the workers seem to tolerate this until they throw the old lady
out, first they make sure the new one is doing OK.

Too many things we don't know about bees. Some of the posts lately have been
more anecdotal than informed, and caused a lot of noise that's not going to lead
anywhere. We don't need to challenge every new idea down to the last detail. In
due time there will be answers. A little restrictively there might keep this
list more "informed" than the other lists dealing with a wider spectra of
beekeeping.

--
Regards

P-O Gustafsson, Sweden
[log in to unmask]  http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/