Instrumental Insemination of Queen Bees is performed with the compact Micro Instrumental Insemination Station which was designed with portability, precision and cost effectiveness in mind. Whether you inseminate a few queens every year or hundreds this instrument will provide you with years of trouble free service. As with our Queen Station this instrument will accept all forms of syringes.
Included with the Micro Instrumental Insemination Station are:
- CO2 hoses and adapters to connect to your current CO2 source
- Ventral hook
- Sting forceps
- Secondary anesthetization box
- Accessories kit
Instrumental insemination requires highly specialized equipment, skill and dexterity to perform it effectively. The basic process for insemination is:
- Virgin queens emerge into mating nuclei with the entrances covered with queen excluder material to prevent virgins from making mating flights
- 5 to 10 days after emerging from queen cells, virgins are anaesthetized using carbon dioxide
- 2 treatments of CO2 are shown to promote egg laying
- 24 hours after initial anesthesia, queens are anaesthetized again and restrained in the AI apparatus
- Semen (typically 8 microliters in volume, roughly equivalent to 10-12 drones) is introduced into the queen’s median oviduct using a specialized syringe
- Over the next ~24 hours, sperm will migrate from the oviduct to the spermatheca.
- Queens will store around 6-8 million sperm from the artificial insemination, which will be used for their entire reproductive lives
Complete selection of Instrumental Insemination Equipment for Queens is available in another shop category in our online store.
