[radiorental]

If you have a strong hive, do you let it swarm or do you intervene and split it?

(for the uninitiated, good hives grow to the point that the queen and half the hive leave to make a new colony, then you have a 50/50 chance the original hive will raise a new queen, that the queen will mate and make it back to the hive without been eaten)

Let me expand my original statement for clarification. splitting leverages the natural process of swarming in the field of beekeeping.

As to some of the other 'interventions' you mention I politely disagree. It's sort of like saying cows are weak in Canada because farmers don't let them freeze to death in winter.

I recently had a hive attacked by ants. They lost a lot of food and brood. Do I let them head into fall and winter with little to no chance of survival? The fact the ants got into the colony was no fault of the bees, just bad luck.

There's survival of the fittest and there's animal husbandry. The two aren't completely incompatible.

[Retric]

They are largely incompatible. The ideal animal husbandry model is different for populations that are going to be culled without breeding. Ex: Veal.

Useing similar methods on fast breeding species where you keep the offspring is a very bad idea long term. The only way to keep things stable is to have breeders who focus on culling the weak. But, you need a large breeding population to maintain genetic diversity.