Mon 24th July Allen Dick wrote:- amongst many other things... "When my new queen arrives from Kentucky, do I have to introduce > her in any special way in order that the existing bees will accept her? It is hard to introduce a queen to a drone layer. I'll let others try to answer this." I heard of a neat way of removing laying workers from a hive from the east of Scotland beekeepers association. I have not tried this, but I would be interested to know if anyone else out there has ever tried this approach The method relies on the fact thet the laying workers are resident in the hive and do not forage. If you wait until mid evening and take the frames one by one to about 40 yards from the hive and shake the bees off onto the ground, the field bees will fly back to the hive. The laying workers however will not get back. You can then introduce a new queen in the usual way. Steve Pearce Perthshire Scotland