Bob Harrison penned, "Both my partner and I will install a caged queen in
a small nuc so she can start laying and come back ....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."

A point that I would like to supplement the above is that the caged
queen's diet and her daily activity has changed quite drasticly in a very
short period of time. A queen purchased from a good queen breeder is
pulled and caged only after she is laying a good pattern. Such a queen is
like an athlete in that she is running full bore, laying a good pattern,
and is being fed royal jelly; if you stop her laying activity, and change
her diet it really throws her a curve. And starting up all over again
from "idleness to  full speed ahead" takes time and is hard on her
systems. And yes, the pheromone machine also takes time to turn back on
and get up to "full speed". Bob has made some very good points, his
attitude about banking is IMO quite valid, one should bank only as a last
resort. We all want queens that are productive, laying at maximum rate
viable eggs in good patterns producing prolific honey making workers. In
order to assure that goal we need to order only queens that we will use or
need within a very short period of time from the queen breeder. It is far
better to keep a queen in a nuc than in a cage. In a nuc she is going
about her business of being a laying queen while being treated as THE
QUEEN. A queen caged is not quite herself.

Most queen breeders will allow the scheduling of deliveries with one total
order. This has the advantage that the total amount of queens ordered is
matched to the total discounted quantity rate, and just the extra postage
if any is required from the purchaser. Here everyone wins, the queen
breeder, the buyer, and the queens ordered are not put on hold and kept
idle for very long.

Chuck Norton
Reidsville, NC

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