>Exactly, clipping prevents her from flying off with a swarm >to leave the new supercedure queen to take over. This is >exactly what is needed on a natural organic system of >beekeeping, for acclimitized queens with openmating. I don't know how to respond to this exactly. You are conflating swarming with supersedure. I don't think more than 5 percent of our colonies ever swarm, if even that -- clipped or not clipped. Supersedure, on the other hand, is very frequent. Some of the time the new queen begins to lay with the old queen still there. The bees kill her once they are satisfied with the new one. All the same, we don't want supersedure at all and that's why we mark queens. We want queens we have raised from selected stock. Organic beekeeping doesn't require mongrels, does it? If so, count me out. H -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---