"Hair-clip" queen catchers

[Joseph Clemens]

I just recently got myself one of those "hair-clip" queen catchers. I now consider it a must-have and load it into my shirt pocket whenever I am getting ready to work my bees. It is a very helpful tool for queen management. A few weeks ago I even used mine to catch a virgin queen -- I left her in the cage and set it on the entrance where it was quickly covered in a thick layer of workers. Once I had finished and was closing up the hive I took the cage in hand and brushed some of the workers off the cage so I could see the queen prior to releasing her into the top of the hive. There she was, then as I moved the cage down near the tops of the frames, she simply slipped out of the cage and made her own way down into the hive, even before I had begun to open it for her. I guess that makes her a temporarily willing captive. Her own workers were probably helpful in keeping her in the catcher cage while I worked the hive.

[AdmiralD]

""hair-clip" queen catchers"

Never heard of it...Where can I see a picture of one? And what is the cost to obtain one....

[Joseph Clemens]

http://www.mannlakeltd.com/search_results.asp?txtsearchParamTxt=queen+catcher&txtsearchParamCat=ALL&btnSearch.x=0&btnSearch.y=0&txtsearchParamType=ALL&iLevel=1&txtsearchParamMan=ALL&txtsearchParamVen=ALL&txtFromSearch=fromSearch

http://brushymountainbeefarm.com/products.asp?pcode=341

[Michael Bush]

I have about ten of them.  One in a pcket of every bee jacket and bee suit and one in each toolbox and a few laying around in case.  

[AdmiralD]

Thanks Joseph.

Did you see the price differences between Brushy Mountain Bee and Mann Lake? $5/ea and $9/ea respectively!  Wow, it pays to shop for Beekeeping supplys...

[Joseph Clemens]

Mine is a metal one I got at my local bee supply store, Southwest Bee
Supply, I haven't seen metal ones anywhere else. I suppose the plastic ones
are okay, but if I forgot it outside and the sun hits it, then I could expect its
viable life to be drastically reduced.

Next time I get over that way I'm gonna pick up some more. They sure are
 handy.

[Dale]

They are a handy thing to have if you are planning on raising a few queens.

Mine is plastic, but I would be lost without it. Virgin queens tend to get loose if they are in there too long.

[Michael Bush]

I've had some virgins queens run right through them.  I've also had one or two of the small cell queens get through, but only after they were in them a while.