Can it be assumed that, in an emergency situation, the colony begins
raising new queens immediately upon removal of the old queen or might there
be some variation in the time it takes the colony to respond?  Also, how
much variation in the age of larvae chosen for queenship is involved in an
emergency situation, and how much variation in the number of queen cells
produced?  If the trigger for such a response is the sudden drop in
pheromone levels, how sudden would that drop have to be?  Is that another
variable, and if so what factors would influence it; size of colony? Weather
conditions?  Is it possible that there could be enough variation in these
factors in the emergency situation to make distinguishing it from a
supersedure difficult in some cases?

     If you could assume that a colony began raising queens immediately upon
removal of the old queen, and that they began raising them all at the same
time as opposed to over a 24 to 48 hour stretch, and that they were all
chosen from larvae of the same age, then you could say that any cells still
open at day 4or 5 were from larvae of a very young age.  And that raises
another question.  Given that a swarm queen is raised to be a queen from the
get go, and that she is a larvae for only 4-5 days, how long is that larval
stage extended when a regular larvae is converted to a queen larvae after a
day or two or three?  Certainly not more than 24 hours.

     The fact that there is very little time involved in the development of
egg to queen, means that even small variations in timing are significant,
and since there are a lot of variables, this makes it is difficult to draw
conclusions as to what is of survival benefit to the species.  Is it
advantageous to get a new queen as quick as possible or to wait a day or two
and get a really fertile robust queen?  To me it is not obvious.  But I
would accept solid scientific observation of exactly when, in the stage of
larvae, colonies begin raising queens, and statistical analysis of those
observations, as the greatest evidence of what nature already knows.  It
seems valuable enough information to have been studied more than it has.  By
the way, here in the greater Seattle area, Italian Queens cost $20.
Steve Noble,
Whidbey Island, Wa.

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