Hi all, I am a commercial queen breeder in Argentina. Over the years, I have tried several different methods for queen banking involving both mated and virgin queens. According to my experience, attempting to bank virgin queens is a total waste of time. Virgin queens are unattractive to worker bees, they release very little pheromone and are therefore not fed. Most virgins will die in less than 4 days regardless of the banking conditions. I have even banked both virgin and mated queens into the same bank, only virgins and only mated queens. In all situations, virgin queens were short-lived. You can watch a short video describing part of my banking procedures for mated queens at http://www.malkaqueens.com/ingles/video/videos.html (Video No. 21) Sincerely, Martin Braunstein www.malkaqueens.com *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm