> 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.