Having downloaded the last 32 postings on the subject of the apidictor, I hope within the next few days to contribute a significant amount of answers and explanation.  In the meantime, here are some thoughts on a completely different subject.

 Have you ever wondered how the queen controls her egg laying to ensure that worker cells get fertilised ones and drone cells get unfertilised ones?  At a lecture I attended some years ago, the speaker suggested that she uses her antennae as a pair of callipers to measure the internal cell diameter when she makes her preliminary inspection but I think this would be a bit cumbersome and would lead to many more mistakes.

 Personally I am certain that after all these centuries the process has been automated and if the cell is a tight fit on her abdomen, it turns on the semen tap and if it is the loose fit of a drone cell, the tap remains off. This would be the most logical and reliable method.

 "Hold on a moment", I hear you say, " How does she manage to get a fertilised egg into the much wider queen cell?"   Well, I have the perfect answer to that and it involves those little things some people call queen cups and others call play cells.

 All through the season you can see these little chaps.  Built sideways on, they look as though the bees started to build a queen cell and then changed their mind by turning the end in to make a worker size entrance.  Because they are always there, they get to be part of the scenery and you stop noticing them but I suggest you ignore them at your peril because they are the real thing.

 Being prudent little creatures, the bees like to keep a stock of queen cells ready for use at short notice. What I think they do is to start building a queen cell and when it is the length of the queen's abdomen, they turn it in to provide a worker size entrance. This ensures that when they want to raise a new queen the old girl backs in and automatically lays a fertilised egg.

 Once she has done this, they can open out the end and continue building but I do not think they do this immediately; they wait 3 days until the larva has hatched.  Murphy's law comes into play here because this will be the day the beekeeper came round to inspect, has seen nothing unusual and the moment he has put the roof on, the masons go in and start reshaping the cell. Five days later, the cell gets sealed and the swarm is off, much to the consternation of the beekeeper.  

 When I first published this idea in British Bee Journal several years ago, the responses could be counted on the nails of one finger so I hope you lot can do a bit better.  Is it a good theory or does anyone regard it as untenable?  Words like 'obviously right', 'well thought out' and 'brilliant' would be most welcome but do not feel shy about 'nonsense' and 'rubbish' if you think they are justified.

Best Wishes,  Rex Boys