yes, I didn't know they didn't allow the bees to choose their own queen until I read the article you posted. seems almost cruel, but then, we humans seem to maniuplate everything in our environment, don't we? and we have a long-standing history of breeding other animals to our liking; we've even taken sex out of it, and use artificial insemination for our domesticated animals--horses, cattle, what else? as well as hybridize food crops and now, unfortunately, GMOs. just read in the newspaper that scientists have managed to clone money embryos--human cloning won't be far behind--I shudder to think what we're going to do with THAT!!