Like the staple passing through the hole, I have found other obstructions.
The most common has been splinters of wood around the hole from the bit
breaking through the last little way.  I have also seen rough holes which
seem to hold the queen back while workers come and go.  I guess the real
experiment would be to collect the queens from these cages, inspect and
measure the hole, measure the queen's thorax in case we have the occasional
large queen, and move them to a different cage that has had a queen exit
from before and see if she has hole-a-phobia or if it is the hole.  I have
only had this in the wooden cages, never the plastic with a molded hole but
then I've had fewer of them.


Ray Lackey
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