"Many hobby beekeepers end up buying "leftovers" from commercials...old junk equipment and culled queens that fetch high prices as so-called "nucs". "

I would far rather buy that leftover commercial stuff you call old junk equipment and culled queens than get for free any equipment or the sickly bees or queens from 90% of the hobby bee keepers I know.  Much of the time the only reason hobby bee keepers have bees is because those commercial guys you hate keep selling them bees and queens which the hobby bee keepers kill fairly promptly.

Your bees swarmed and that is why you are not going to get a honey crop.  If all that happened was the queen died they would make a great honey crop.

Dick  -  A hobby bee keeper

" Any discovery made by the human mind can be explained in its essentials to the curious learner."  Professor Benjamin Schumacher talking about teaching quantum mechanics to non scientists.   "For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."  H. L. Mencken

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