Just a few thoughts from Janet's experience with longer worker bee life spans

A couple of years ago we had a colony become queenless in June.  As it was the beginning of a flow and we did not have a replacement queen we left them to it.  They made a nice batch of honey and carried on into the summer.  We attempted to requeen them twice but both times the bees killed the queens, so we left them to die off naturally as they continued to make honey for us.  However, by late September we still had a 7 - 8 frame colony that had been queen/brood free for almost 4 months!  As they were still very viable, we combined these bees with another colony in preparation for winter.  This made us consider the supposed 'six week' lifespan of a honeybee worker, as our experience with bees housed in an insulated long lang proved that given good housing with a stable environment the bees do not exhaust themselves with temperature and humidity regulatory duties.  This ensures more bees are available to forage and for longer than bees housed in lower quality hives*.  

Innisfree farm

Salt Spring Island BC

*The writer wouldn't say what type of "lower quality" hives these were! (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more)