Alan I have the stainless steel catchers, (clip type) and the hard plastic. I never use the stainless. I go with hard plastic and I like these the best. Blackforest way is the way that pros seem to catch the queens. I have not built up enough confidence in my wing catching skills to do this. I am not sure I will not damage the wings. This was a problem for me when placing the breeder queen into the nicot grid. When the queen catcher is opened, it has a split or opening all the width of the clip making this especially tricky when placing a queen in a marking cage from a queen clip. So here is my solution. I opened the empty hard plastic clip wide enough for a queen to easily escape. Held it at this width after heating a straightened our paper clip and working the heated end of the paper clip through the clips sides, creating a hole enabling the clip to hold open at this desired width. I added a (flap) using duct tape doubled over so no bee would become stuck to the duct tape. Then I simply split the duct tape to the desired width creating the perfect size opening for the clip allowing the queen to go through only at the created pass. That way there is hardly any chance of her going anywhere except the desired place that I want her. No flying off but into the marking cage or nicot grid and I never touch her. Safe and absolutely effective. I simply hold the flap back when catching a queen. Once caught, I close the clip, fold the flap over covering the opening, open wide enough to insert the paper clip, open small opening part of flap with my finger in place so she can?t escape, but this clip opening to marking cage or nicot opening and let her walk right in. So easy a child can do it. Good luck. By the way, I have never seen this done so I have patent rights as proven an dated here haa haa .
Phillip
