I believe that a very basic fact of bee and colony biology is being grossly overlooked in this discussion of queen, package and nuc survival. 

The bees that arrive in the package may be of different ages and health. They can be young healthy bees just shaken from strong disease free colonys or they can be worn out left overs from almond pollination or some variation in between. In the end it makes little difference to a colonies long term survival. Yes a package of healthy young bees has a much better chance of getting off to a good start given proper care. That means ample nutrition, mite and disease monitoring and control and access to good forage. The simple fact is that virtually all of those package bees will naturally die in the first 8 weeks, most before that. Succeeding generations are purely a factor of the queen. The colony past mid summer is that queen's colony.

The queen that comes with the package is not likely closely related to the bees. Her performance will be determined by her genetics, general health, and most importantly the quality of the care she and her offspring receive. That is from both the worker bees and the beekeeper. If she is unfortunately superceded for what ever reason the fate of the colony is now determined by the new queen that will share at most 50% of the old queen's genetic material. If the colony successfully raises and mates a new queen she is by some peoples version a "local" queen. Born in what ever zip code she was raised in. In reality she is most likely the survivor of the natural effort of the bees to produce a queen and if she mates well she has every chance of going on to head a successful colony.  Her quality will be mostly determined by the health and vigor of the colony that raises her. If she heads a productive colony and makes it through her first winter whatever happens after that is not likely due to the conditions or location of her birth. Of course if the colony still suffers from poor conditions of health and nutrition all bets are off. 

An over wintered or newly established nuc headed by a surviving queen together with her own brood and workers has the best chance of all. But given poor conditions and poor care by the beekeeper it will fail just as surely as the worst package queen combination from a continent away.

Bad results come from putting good bees in bad equipment. From poor care by an inexperienced or negligent beekeeper. Rarely but sometimes bad luck. Hundreds of years of empirical evidence show that careful beekeepers successfully overcome the challenges that come their way. It is a learning process and most of us make mistakes in the beginning. The challenges change over time but the attitude and commitment of the beekeeper will most often determine the longevity of a healthy colony. A good beekeeper can in fact make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. We have been doing it for a long, long time. 

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA 

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