Greetings to All,

Since much time has recently been devoted to discussion of the candling of
queen cells I thought that I would share the following. In Laidlaw, H. H.
Jr., (1992) “Production of Queens and Package Bees” In: Graham, J. The
Hive and the Honey Bee. Dadant and Sons, Hamilton, Illinois p. 1010 the
following passage is given:

“‘Ripe’ cells are sometimes ‘candled’ to identify those with non-living
queens by tilting them in front of a lamp. Living queens will ‘rock’ in
the cells. The unfolded wings of queens in queen cells less than 10 days
old can be damaged by rough handling, but queens in older cells are less
likely to suffer damage.”

Cheers,

Chuck Norton
Reidsville, NC

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