>  That suggests to me that queen attractiveness indeed results in the drift and uneven distribution of bees.

But you are talking about a queenright hive among a lot of queenless ones. I would definitely agree with that. That's why it's hard to make nucs in yards with the donor colonies, the bees find the queens and go there. 

I was referring to yards of packages where they are all nearly the same. Same bees, probably queens highly related. But the clincher is that the strongest hives are usually the ones at the edges of the yards, suggesting an effect related to drifting. But also, with the disoriented bees going to hives that have more bees than others, the effect is amplified.

I do not discount the attractiveness of queens at all. I just don't think it accounts for the effect of bees ganging up on certain colonies during package installation, a special case.

But thanks for the opportunity to elaborate on this interesting point.

PLB

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