> do, young bees, or from the queen's original retinue.

What I pictured when reading this is that the writer meant, "the bees which
are surrounding the queen at the time you pluck her off the frame."  Probably
a better term than "original retinue" would be "current retinue".  I has always
been my observation that the queen goes where she wants to and there is not a
group of bees that constantly follow her around.  In other words, the retinue
changes as she moves across the frame.  Purposely choosing attendants to
include in the queen cage from the bees that are currently tending to the queen
may give some advantage over randomly choosing them from whatever bees are in
the hive.  I think what has been documented is that the work done by the worker
bees changes over the life of the bee and is partly dependent on age and partly
dependent on the needs of the colony.

Layne Westover, College Station, Texas, U.S.A.