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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alastair" data-source="post: 14001" data-attributes="member: 13">Here is what I have found. Going back to pre varroa times, pretty much every queen would do well for the first two years, and quite often the bees would supersede her at the end of year two. But if they did not, the third year she would not lay very well. Supersedure almost always happened in autumn. Hives almost never lost a queen in winter because if the queen was likely to fail, the bees would know that and supersede her. Now, post varroa, both bees and queens have virus levels thousands of times higher than before we had varroa. So we see queens fail quickly, and the bees do not always know she will fail, so queens can disappear mid winter when it is not possible for the bees to make a new one and she can mate. So every year many hives are lost in winter due to queenlessness, this was virtually unknown pre varroa.Post varroa but a few years ago I would see queens being superseded every few months. Not many would make it to the end of the two years. But now, nearly all my queens are good for two years. I do not know why this is. Could be the result of some kind of natural selection process that has been in play, but I don't know. Also, in my hives anyway, there are a lot less winter losses due to queenlessness than there used to be.</blockquote>

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