Scads,
My own stats along with information I have gathered by many conversations with others, is that swarms will likely replace a queen within 60 days of being issued.
I know many in the past mention replacing queens based on a "swarm trait' which I think is wrong.
Whether the queen is proven or not by some test of mother nature, that same mother nature also dictates that the best queen and the queen giving the established colony the best chance of survival, is the new queen in the original colony. Nature plays the odds all the time when it comes to survival and the BEST way of passing on the best genes. And mother nature dictates that the old "proven" queen be sent packing with the swarm, which should yell you something. Nature selected the best chance of survival with the new queen in the old hive. The lesser chance of survival, which is now the old queen being cast out with the swarm, is the one that nature has deemed expendable, with the least likely chance of survival.
I think mother nature knows exactly what it's doing. It sends out the old queen, and at the first chance it can, replaces the queen. Although this attempt is nature's way of bettering the odds, it is still secondary to what nature has dictated as the best odds, given to the original colony.
If you tally up the swarms with non-laying queens, the queens that disappeared after one caught the swarm, the colonies that died out after the swarm was captured, it would be a high rate of loss.
I don't buy into the notion that the queen with a swarm is proven, is of quality, or anything else. A swarm is to be monitored and dealt with as needed. And that is more times than not. If the swarm queen does fine, I do not automativally requeen her. But I just try to understand what nature just gave me, and what that may mean. And it's not usually her best, as she has shown by her own selection criteria.
What throws the numbers off are those secondary swarms that now have young queens, and actually have a better chance than the "proven" older queen in the primary swarm.