>Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. If you check a hive that has lost
>it's queen unexpectantly 3-4 days after the event you'll find sealed queen
>cells. Now it doesn't take a superior amount of knowledge to see that a
>queen sealed after 6-7 days cannot possible be as a good as a queen sealed
>after 9 days. This reflects in egg capacity, amount of pheromones produced
>and general overall performance. Within a matter of days or weeks that
>queen will be supersceded, but only if you watch carefully, mark the queen
>will you know it's happened.

What is being gotten at is that the bees are picking an older larvae to use
for the process. This larvae was closer to being capped before the need for
a new queen. The problem from our point of view is that the larvae, at this
age, has had the diet switch begin and has not had the full nutritional
regiment to fully develop as a queen. This will result in a queen with
underdeveloped ovaries and glands. The ovaries will not have the egg laying
capacity and the glands will not be able to produce the phermones that glue
the hive together.

The odds are very good that within a few days of egg laying the workers will
begin a supercedure cell. This is a case where the bees only need the first
queen for a few weeks. This is much like the old queen that leaves with a
swarm, her days are numbered.

Until the supercedure cell hatches and the quality queen mates the hive is
going to be cranky.

This process, which is burned into the DNA of the bees, can get in the way
of queen introduction. When the packaged queen arrives she is allowed out
and very soon afterwards the bees are building a supercedure cell.