> After years of observing hives that didn't take our grafted queen cells, I 
> have the opinion that the emergency queens were 50 % good size, but many 
> queens were small runts, some so small as to be hard to differentiate from 
> workers.

I'm glad to hear comments from those who have had different experience from 
mine.  No two operations, locales or management systems are the same, so 
differences are to be expected.  Your situation is obviously very different 
from mine, and I expect that I would make decisions similar to yours, if in 
your shoes.

Also, you may be a much better beekeeper than average.  I suspect you are. 
The average beekeeper is not able to consistently obtain the quality you 
that you may consider normal, and therefore have a lower standard of 
comparison.

So, in the following, I am not arguing with you, but speaking more generally 
on the topic and making some random points.

Understanding that situations vary, as I said, the emergency queens of which 
I speak are those which are raised under specific ideal conditions.  For 
fairness, should be compared to to grafted queens raised under typical 
conditions,  In both cases there are bound to be some culls.

Nobody who has dealt with poor queens raised by grafting methods blames 
solely the method in the way, for some reason, people tend to blame the 
emergency impulse for the duds they have seen every time the topic comes up.

Seems to me that we hear a lot of grumbling about the quality of commercial 
queens and then idealize those same queens when comparing to nature's 
product.

Just as grafted queens are not all the same, lumping all emergency queens 
into one class is unfair.  I guess we should think about the fact, too, that 
grafted queens are raised under the emergency impulse, so the only question 
is who gets to choose the mother and the larva and who is best at handling 
the larvae, pupae and newly hatched virgin.  Each of us has a different 
opinion as to who knows best, the bees or some newly hired grafter and 
summer help at a queen factory.

> I would never advocate splits made with emergency cells *if* high quality 
> grafted cells were available, any more than I would buy cheap poor quality 
> queens from a breeder to save a few bucks.

There are a lot of factors to consider here. Having bought thousands of 
cells and evaluated the result, I am less inclined to make a strong 
distinction.  There is also the whole economic question.  What is in short 
supply, time, expertise, weather, equipment, bees?  What is the price of 
honey?  Queens?  Cells?  What is the development and production window?

> All things considered, a good queen has the most impact on the general 
> quality of the hive.

This is generally agreed.  The question then becomes, what defines 'good' 
and how much better 'best' than 'good', and can that difference be made to 
pay or is the extra cost and effort just an investment in managerial ego?

> One other consideration that has not been mentioned on this subject most 
> recently is this: the time factor. When we split in Florida, every day is 
> crucial to get queens laying ASAP to build up good populations to make 
> honey. By using cells, one can get a jump on it, especially when queens 
> are not available because of high demand and pricey.

Very good points that illustrate why an approach that fits me and my goals 
does not fit yours.

Another consideration is that a beekeeper is not necessarily stuck with 
either/or.  Smart beekeepers when out in a yard a long way from home, no 
queens along and with no likelihood of an early return to this yard and 
faced with a need split, or to deal with a strong but queenless or suspected 
queenless hive will drop in a frame of eggs and/or young brood -- and walk 
away.  Moreover, queenless hives may not accept a queen, but will generally 
accept eggs and brood.

All in all, I am sure that walk-away splits will never become the main 
method, but it is astounding how popular it has become in recent years, 
especially with those who are not under pressure to extract every penny from 
their bees. 

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