I have a real interest in this because of the unorthodox way in which I 
raise queens,,,,w/o going into lots of detail, I have a problem at times 
with  unintentionally raising "emergency queens"  as opposed to the bees 
raising from stock i intend. I wish I could make them choose a specified 
egg/larvae of a group! No luck so far.

I think Allen has a point when he says that the unsealed cells could simply 
be from an older larvae started later.

It has been shown(or at least strongly implied) in the reading I have done 
that starting with younger larvae results in generally more ovarioles-down 
to about 18 hours or so anyway, and you tend to diminish the quality of 
queens as you move much over 24 hours. "Contemporary Queen Raising" By 
Laidlaw Page 18

Randy commented that he had seen some small emergency queens. My 
observations are in line with this-that the % of emergency queens that are 
small is higher than those rasied "normally".
I may well be wrong but it seems that way to me.

John Horton

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