So I've got one of those dilemmas: When do I break down and order a new
queen?

A few weeks ago I noticed my second most successful hive was queenless.
There were supercedure cells everywhere. The hive had two goodly filled
supers of honey on it. Still some brood, but not too young. Some of the
queens were getting ready to emerge. I figured I'd let nature take it's
course and sealed them back up. Last weekend I checked and sure enough all
the queen cells were neatly opened and cleaned out. No swarms, so I figured
things went well. I don't know exactly when the queens emerged, but probably
within a short time after I first noticed them. So today I went in and
there's still no brood. The bees don't seem to be in too much of a funk, but
the supers of honey have shrunk in quantity quite a bit. Meanwhile another
hive that was similar to this before the queen vanished has filled up
another super completely and is working on another (so it has four on it
right now).

This happened last year too. I jumped the gun a bit and ordered a queen
early on. Apparently there was already a new queen that hadn't started to
lay yet and introducing the new queen triggered a swarm very quickly. I'd
like to avoid that, of course, but I also don't want to wait so long that I
totally lose any value from the hive. I've tried looking for a queen in it,
but I'm never very good at finding them and so not finding her is still
pretty inconclusive.

So what's the advice?

This brings up another question I've been kicking around: Do you let your
bees supercede naturally? I figure workers from my high-production colonies
know the health and well being of their queen better than I do. If they
decide to raise another, shouldn't I trust them? If it's a good hive, and
they really seem to know what they're doing, shouldn't I let them? On
questionable hives I try to take a more direct role, but I'm curious what
other people do. If you let your bees manage themselves, do you find they do
a good job of it? Of course they've done it for a million years, but we have
a different agenda and I wonder if the two can be compatible.

Regards,

Bosaiya

.....designs to knock you out.....
http://www.knockoutproductions.com