Plastic Queen Cages each

Description

These have become the preferred style of cage. To put the queen in for transport. Fill the spout with queen candy. Gently, very gently, put the queen into the cage, partially cover the opening so she cannot escape and pop in a few workers, close the main part of the opening and then the small bit. Cage is then ready for transport.

To use this cage to introduce a queen into her new hive. Firstly, kill the existing queen and wait 24 hours. This makes sure the colony realizes they are queen less but does not give them time to do anything about it. Now push a fine toothpick through the queen candy and place the cage with the spout upwards in between 2 frames in the brood area. The bees can see and smell and care for the queen but until they have eaten away the candy they cannot harm her. Once the candy has been eaten away and the queen is free to enter the hive the bees have enough of her pheromone in the hive for the queen to be accepted. The spout up placement means that if any of the accompanying workers dies in the cage the body does not block the way out for the queen and the other workers.