> Where will these neo-Darwinists get more bees? 
> Splits from the survivors?

Yeah, I know that. In his book, Dr Seeley says

> When you need additional colonies, acquire them by capturing swarms with bait hives or by making “splits” from strong colonies and letting them conduct emergency queen rearing and natural queen mating.  These two ways of acquiring additional colonies will provide you with colonies headed by queens that were reared from larvae chosen by the bees and mated by drones that competed fiercely for mating success.

Except that when you catch a swarm, it likely came from commercial stock, headed by a commercial queen raised by meddlesome humans. In his words:

>When we humans graft one-day-old larvae into artificial queen cups for rearing queens, we prevent the bees from choosing which larvae will develop into queens. It may be the case, too, that the bees exercise choice that is based on larval health, which is a sign of the overall vigor of the developing bee.

Probably the queen in your split mates with commercial stock, too. I live not far from the Legendary Arnot Forest (8.5 miles). So does another beekeeper running 400-500 hives. Take from that what you wish.

PLB

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