I think that the city is a good study platform for the problem, as every
queen failure or attempted supersedure is easy to detect, as the colony
invariably goes queenless, or becomes a drone-layer.
  
This statement baffled me.  Why the heck would you think the city is a good
platform when a tiny portion of hives are city located,  your exposed to a
wider array of contaminats and less good forage than most hives?   Any work
you did would be tainted by the simple fact you have no clue what those
queens were exposed to?  The only more un-natural situation would be lab
raised no free flight.


The issue of "bad queens"  still needs to be quantified.  In discussion with
Dave Tarpy last year,  one thing became clear.  We don't have a definition
of a bad queen.  Dave presented a lot of date on sperm viability in
production queens,  but when I asked what the normal was in good wild queens
the answer was  "we don't know"  no one wants to take a good queen and test
her.

We are in a situation where we have no baseline.  Yes we have claims of 4-5
year old queens.  Age is not an issue.  I have a 3 year old carni right now
laying just fine.   
Much of our issue is raised beekeeper expectations.  We want brood, brood,
and more brood.  Add to that the standard that most beekeepers still blame
the queen for every issue in the hive, and we have a constant need for
replacement queens.  We now try very hard to manage swarms, so no "great"
replacements and it's a very tainted picture.

Until a clear definition is produced  we are spitting in the wind.   I
listened to several presentations on the topic,  and no "definition" exist
yet.  Its insanity trying to claim why,  when we can not define what as of
yet.  
Is it sperm viability?  (define a time frame)
Honey production?
Amount of brood?
Brood pattern?
Age?
Summer shutdown?
Swarm production?

Or some established paramaters of each.

Right now there is a group in CA who will "grade" your productiuon queens.
Problem is its all morpametrics.  Meaningless except to say,  wow  that's a
pretty queen.   I have some tiny queens that lay great......  and some
giants that are mediocre.

Charles

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