My objective here is to utilise the egg transfer techniques, that are already proven, to distribute honey bee drones of known pedigree into hives that may be being used for honey production or colonies within a "guard ring" area. The eggs may be mailed by letter post to distant destinations or the inserts can be utilised locally in other hives.

Such infusions of preferred drones will not guarantee mating by that strain of drone, but will help to dilute the influence of the drones that are occurring locally. If apiary vicinity mating is a feature of the bees that it is desire to propagate it may well be useful to have suitable drones available, however I am not sure whether 'undesirable drones' would become excited by such local mating activity and might thus be drawn into the chase.

Drone eggs can be laid into prepared plant pot inserts that are positioned in full sized drone producing colonies or smaller colonies. Even small sized mating nucs can be pressed into service, if it has a queen that is known to be especially desirable (perhaps an II queen). If postal transmission is envisaged it must be done at the egg stage. If more local use is intended, the laid up inserts can be transferred to the target hives at more or less any time after laying, but if the eggs are allowed to hatch and be fed, they may stand a better chance of not being eaten. If the inserts are left until the drone brood is sealed before transfer then no resources are taken from the target hives.

Bear in mind that the colony raising the drones may need supplementing with freshly trapped pollen and syrup or honey feed.