Off the top I would like to point out that there is a HUGE difference in 
the way outfits bank queens and I believe this makes a HUGE difference 
in queen quality.  IMO a quality queen bank should be setup like a cell 
builder with a ton of young bees and emerging brood.  I know of several 
outfits who have changed their survival and acceptance rates by adopting 
this method. We have held queens for quite a while (month) with no 
noticeable decline in queen quality, but it takes work! When I hear 
about missing feet, etc, I usually find the guy put an excluder in a 
strong double the evening before; moved the queen and all the house bees 
to the bottom and slid the banking frame(s) in the top box with all the 
grumpy, old field bees.  Or.....  he shook a bunch of frames he "knew" 
the queen won't be on (ie. non brood) into the bank.  Another case of 
quantity doesn't mean quality.

Secondly there seems to be some kind of contest with some guys to see 
how many queens they can get into a single bank.  I don't like to go 
over a 100, but will do 150 in an awesome unit for a couple days.  I 
have guys laughing and telling me you can easily do 250 - 300, but these 
same operators also seem to be the ones complaining at times about the 
quality of the queens we get.

Although I like to use my queens as soon as possible, I will almost 
always bank shipped queens for a couple of days after receiving them.  
Years ago I found that the nurse bees would immediately reject some 
queens even though they look good to me.  Who am I to argue. I'd rather 
just toss the $20. queen, than the whole unit she be placed into.  We 
found this when carefully monitoring queens shipped in battery boxes.  
Sometimes the queens near the vented ends must have gotten chilled 
during shipment as they would be rejected or superseded within the 
month.  After a couple of us noted this, we tried moving them to the 
middle of the bar before banking and they would be still be rejected.  
It's not 100%, but it cut down on loses in the field.

Finally, we don't use anything but Jz Bz Cages for introduction.  I 
don't like to simply say plastic, as the KIwis and Aussies have a 
plastic copy of the wooden brick and there are some hair roller models 
out there.  Even before the new Canadian protocols against hive beetle, 
we transferred everything.  Last season a neighbour came up with a 
interesting idea for those uncomfortable with doing this.  He places a 
rimmed piece of plexi-glass over barrel with a strong light in it.  He 
darkens the room and mists the plexi-glass with tepid water.  You can 
open the cage and dump everyone onto the glass, sort out the queen and 
herd or place her into the new cage. The rim keeps everyone from falling 
off the edge. Like shooting fish in a barrel.  When we use this method,  
I'm comfortable allowing a staff member to help me do the transferring.

Just some thoughts

Dave Tharle
Ardmore, AB
Canada
+54 16'8.74"
-110 29'5.11"

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