Mike said: I've stored many queens over an excluder, and seen unused queens remain alive for months, after the attendants had been long dead. I guess I will be the only person to object to queen banks. I strongly believe a queen cage should only be a method of transporting a queen from the queen breeder to the beekeeper or used in itroduction. Example of how picky myself and my partner are: We want our queen orders shipped if possible the day the queens are caged. Regardless of the prearranged shipping date if the queen breeder has allready filled my order then ship my order. we get upset when the express mail takes longer than two days. This year most queen shipments out of California & Hawaii have taken four days. We get free shipping if the express mail is over two days. We would rather pay the shipping and get our queens in two days. Our standard rule is a battery box (box holding 100 queens) are installed in hives/nucs within two days. If not we call another beekeeper and sell what we can't install . Almost every year I sell part of a battery box if I can't use within two days and I also will buy part of a battery box from another beekeeper so we do not have to bank queens. Both my partner and I will install a caged queen in a small nuc so she can start laying and come back in a couple weeks and recage her if I know I /we will need queens before another shipment arrives. These recaged queens are quickly accepted by the bees. Dr. Hoffman has shown that pheromone levels drop to low levels with a queen which has been caged for awhile which causes in her opinion introduction problems. The number one reason I see for queens being banked is by beekeepers which order more queens than brood they have got to make up nucs. I say find a home for (sell to another beekeeper) or as Chuck suggests change the delivery date or try to set up the practice of installing or putting queens in small nucs instead of banking queens for weeks. I do not know what the problem is this year with express mail but the delivery time is double last year. I know many beekeepers are thrilled with getting queen shipping for free but consider if not profitable we may lose a valuable method of getting queens if express mail decides handling queens is a losing proposition. I agree with the methods posted on queen banking by Simon , Sarah ,Chuck, Mike and others but I see queens which have been in the cage for weeks as *in my opinion* less than desirable. I see queen banking as an option but *in my opinion*the last option. Sincerely, Bob Harrison :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::