Randy writes
I don't see why confinement itself would lead to her "suffering."  I'm wondering whether Pellet did not realize that the poor performance subsequent to shipping may have been due to temperature stress during shipping.

Hi
Contrary to what others have said, this information from 100 years ago is still instructive. However, if more recent information is better, we can take that into account. But these people were pretty good at raising and shipping queens and their experience helps us to flesh out the details of what works and what doesn't. He goes on to say:

Buyers should bear in mind that old queens which have
laid heavily for one or more seasons, cannot be expected to re
peat their former performances after a journey by mail. Such
queens can only be shipped safely on combs in a nucleus, where
they can continue laying lightly for some time. Someone has
compared the sudden checking of the work of a laying queen,
with the shipment of a cow, which is a heavy milker, without
drawing her milk for several days. Neither can be expected
to be as good again.

¶

Quite clearly, shipping bees in a nucleus is better for the queen and it may have to do with temperature as much as anything else. I know that millions of queens are sold through the mails; people have complained about them from the beginning, but they still buy them. Any queen that is raised on site and is introduced in a conscientious way should be better than one jammed in a cage and shioved in a foreign hive with little preparation. 

PLB

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