Ok...as a professional artificial inseminator.....

When collecting semen from bulls, a cow or steer known as the "teaser" is tied up and the bull walked backwards and forwards behind it to get him excited and so get the optimum quantity and quality of semen. (I hope your imaginations are working on bees here!) When the person leading the bull decides he's ready (the bull, not the person) the bull is allowed to mount the teaser. Standing ready to one side is someone holding a rubber tube (Yes, you all know about this!) with warm water between the outer and inner walls and a test tube attached to the end. He rushes in and wacks the tube on the bull's penis, catching the semen, which goes into the test tube. Ok, now picture it done with bees!!

As far as inseminating the queens goes.....I can really see me, dressed in my wellies and neck-to-knee parturition gown and long plastic glove, sticking my arm (It had better be my finger I think, and even that's ambitious) up the bee's bum. (God! How do I avoid the sting??) then inserting the insemination gun, already containing a plastic straw of bee semen. I have to locate the cervix (Do they have one?) and gently work the rod through to the other side where I release the semen to go evenly up both horns of the uterus. The big question, however..... a cow is served when it is in season, known, in the trade, as 'bulling'. You can tell when a cow is bulling because, among other things, it will stand still and allow other cows to mount it. How do you tell when a bee is in season? And would it be known as droning? What does this say about bagpipe players? I think I'd better leave this here.......