Good Queen vs Bad Queen

[MrILoveTheAnts]

For those of you who don't replace your queens every year or two I understand there is a condition where the queen starts to only lay Drone Brood. Is this because of her age (5 yeas?) or is it that she's run out of the stuff? Has anyone ever tried to artificially inseminate such a queen to see if this is the case? I'm asking why let a good queen go bad?
On the flip side that would mean a queen that didn't lay as many eggs a day would last longer. Any thoughts?

[Understudy]

My understanding is that a queen would be superceded by that time.
A queen at five years is not at a good age I don't know of anyone who would insemnate one at that age.
A queen at that age has lived a long life in bee terms.
Hopefully the workers would have queen cells ready to replace her with before it got to that stage.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Brian D. Bray]

The bees will supercede a queen for a variety of reasons.  It has been found that older queens 4-5 years will sometimes take new mating flights to replenish depleted sperm storage (This, if I remember correctly, is based on some research on older queens done in the UK and/or Germany).  Queen not laying a good or light pattern is liable to be superceded as is a queen that my have some type of deformity or chemical poisoning. 
Requeening is the act of controlling supercedure.  You (hope) are replacing a unknown with a know when requeening.  Supercedure can have excellent to bad results.

[Michael Bush]

>For those of you who don't replace your queens every year or two I understand there is a condition where the queen starts to only lay Drone Brood. Is this because of her age (5 yeas?) or is it that she's run out of the stuff?

Because she runs out of sperm.

>Has anyone ever tried to artificially inseminate such a queen to see if this is the case?

I have no idea.

>On the flip side that would mean a queen that didn't lay as many eggs a day would last longer.

Yes, she will.

Three years is typically when a queen fails and is superseded.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Queen%20Alice