Thanks for that link, some good reading there. (I could type out the relevant Manley passage later today if you like).
My queens mentioned here are both (just) over a couple of years old so the damage is relatively late in life. The one which is still going strong is suffering from a dud right back leg which actually matches your queens. Coincidence? The one which I found outside of the hive had totally lost her front left and half of her middle left. Thinking about it now, I'm pretty sure that that was purposely inflicted damage and I have to assume that at least some of the amputation was done after she'd managed to walk around the outside of the hive, a distance I'd estimate as roughly ten or eleven inches. Just seems a long way to walk in that condition but I've no real way of knowing for sure.
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