Originally Posted by
Mike Cox
Feeling loss over bees is a tricky area. Every bee I ever keep will die. Most of them only live a few short months. When a colony dies we really have a failure to produce the next generation of bees... the old bees were dying anyway. That doesn't mean I'm not a bit disappointed when it happens, but I try not to get emotionally attached to each one.
I find a similar issue with requeening. If you remove/kill an old queen and replace her with a younger one you colony hasn't really survived - it is a new colony with a new mother. The old queens genetic line is gone and is usually lost.
So while I don't view bees as a purely financial cost, I also try not get too emotionally attached to my colonies. I feel this helps me to make better, more balanced decisions about their management.