>>Why are all the queen problems happening since we started putting 
chemicals in bee hives... 

Chemicals of all sorts have an effect...  I removed this summer one 
feral colony from a location that had had bees before and had been 
sprayed with a hornet spray years earlier.  This colony was from a 
spring swarm.  The colony numbers were not bad, there was no worker 
brood at all and only some last emerging drone brood.  I figured they 
had lost their queen...

I shook all the vac'ed bees into a bee hive and checked them frame by 
frame 2 days later.  I was a little surprised to find a virgin queen 
on aframe.  She *looked* mature but the abdomen was small.  I kept 
her for another week and a half before dispatching her.  I believe 
some chemicals cause queens to either not take mating flights or 
cause them to be sterile.  It's another case for not using 
chemicals...

Waldemar
Long Island, NY  

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