> Has anyone seen any studies that have demonstrated a
clear benefit from allowing them to lay for a longer period prior to caging

Alas not a controlled study but many years of personal observation and anecdotal evidence suggests to me that there is improved acceptance and reduced supercedure if the queen has spent 21 or more days in the mating nuc. This is from my own queens that are not shipped but transferred in a couple of hours to the new colony. I rarely buy queens, but due to my own error in the cell builder I did buy a batch a few years ago and instead of installing them directly into full sized colonies put them into the waiting breeding nucs for about two weeks. 100% were accepted and survived the season. I don't have good enough records to say how they did over their life span but clearly a higher rate of acceptance then is normal for me. FWIW.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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