There is a long history of attempting to get honey bee matings in enclosed
spaces, sometimes very large ones, and many of these have claimed success,
only to fade away.  Against this background, there is another recent one.
Maybe this one won't fade.  At the recent Entomological Society of America
annual meeting in Reno Nevada, a paper was presented from Oregon State
University on the partial success of a device built out out thin aluminum
(newspaper lithography sheets) in the shape of a dome-topped cylinder perhaps
60 cm in diameter and 90 high (guesstimated from a photo that was shown) into
which a fairly large number of drones were placed, which hovered in the device.
A queen was then introduced harnessed in device made from a soda straw, and, I
think, moved about.  Some of these queens were inseminated, and produced worker
progeny.  It seems clear this is a long way from a complete solution, but a
hopeful step on the way.  The device was outside, illuminated through a port
in the side by reflected sunlight.  The experimenters attributed their success
to acheiving a diffuse light field (under the reflecting dome) without bright
spots to which the drones would orient.
Kirk