Hello All
 
First I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all those who
replied to my question on how sperm is stored by the queen.
 
I have just received the 1999 Better Bee catalog from the USA wherein I note
that they advertise a Queen Introduction Cage. This is quite a large cage
which is big enough to allow the queen to start laying before she is released.
 
The product description says among other things:
 
'The queen cage has legs that anchor it to a drawn comb. The queen and her
attendants are released into it but they cannot be reached by the workers in
the colony you are re queening. When you observe that she is laying in the
cells inside the cage, she can be united with the new hive and her
acceptance is almost guaranteed'
 
I have two questions on this product.
 
1.  I read in several treatises on queen introduction that under no
circumstances should the attendant workers be put into a Queen Introduction
Cage with the queen, lest they fight with the hive workers in an attempt to
defend their queen and end up getting her killed. Why is this dictum not
being observed here?.
 
2.  Such treatises also advise the beekeeper to leave a colony into which a
queen is being introduced severely alone, for about 6 days. Would not the
intrusion caused by checking on the queen laying cause the bees to react
badly towards her?.
 
Before I risk some valuable queens, (costing the equivalent of US$21.00 each
in this country), this year with this product, I would like to hear if
anybody has any experience of such a device or can comment on putting
attendant workers into queen introduction cages.
 
Many thanks for any assistance.
 
Sincerely
 
Tom Barrett
49 South Park
Foxrock
Dublin 18
Ireland
 
Hobbyist beekeeper
 
e mail [log in to unmask]
Tel + 353 1 289 5269
Fax + 353 1 289 9940
 
Latitude  53 Degrees 16' North
Longitude  6 Degrees  9' West of Greenwich