Schley Portable Insemination Station with CO₂ Cartridges

01 · EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS

And we say it because you will ask

The sum, at today's catalogue prices: Schley 1.02 unit, €1,446.28; portable 4.00 anaesthesia, €156.20; 3.20 LED lamp, €82.60; trinocular stereo microscope, €574.38. Total, €2,259.46.

A set like this is worth something else: the four pieces are the ones that fit each other, and they arrive together. Whoever builds a station for the first time finds out late that the small part is missing, and that is the one that stops the session.

02 · CARTRIDGE OR BOTTLE: €12.40

And the decision is not about price

Our range has the same set with a CO₂ bottle at €2,272.73: twelve euros and forty cents more. At that gap, choosing by the amount makes no sense.

Choose by where you work. The cartridge needs no installation and fits in a box: courses, a mobile lab, a corner of the honey house. The bottle belongs to a fixed station and, since the cartridge is a consumable, the bottle pays for itself as soon as the number of queens per season goes up. Count your sessions before choosing.

03 · THE LAMP IS A SINGLE POINT

And the reason is that light is the problem

The 3.20 in the set is a single-point lamp, warm 3000 K, with no side emission. It is not a twin lamp.

The maker gives the reason: intense light harms drone semen, and holding the column under strong light for twenty minutes is harmful. Concentrating the beam on one point is what keeps it from being overexposed, and with a wide angle that cannot be avoided.

04 · THE MICROSCOPE IS HALF THE CALL

And here it comes trinocular

At €574.38 it is the second most expensive piece in the set, and the one that separates this from an improvised bench: 10x/30x, wide-field eyepieces and a third tube for a camera.

That third tube is not a luxury: it is what lets you project, record and teach without anyone having to pull you off the eyepiece. If the station is also going to be used for training, that is the reason to buy trinocular rather than binocular.

05 · THE SKILL IS NOT IN THE BOX

Which is the part that costs most

Inseminating a queen is a manual skill learned with the hands, not by reading. A complete kit does not shorten that curve; it only stops the equipment being the excuse.

Our range has the fully practical in-person course at €826.45 and the online course at €161.16. Added to the set, that is the real figure for building a station from nothing.

06 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Separately they add up to €2,259.46. The set is worth the list, not the price.