Box for package bees

01 · VENTILATION

Two screened faces, not four board walls

Both 40 × 26.5 cm faces are covered in screen, front and back. The bees cluster against the mesh and breathe through both sides at once, which is what lets a package sit for hours on the road.

02 · TOP PORT

One way in, and the lid does not open

The lid has a round hole drilled in the centre. The funnel goes in there when you shake frames to make up the package, and that is where you close it afterwards: with a board cut to size or, better, with an inverted jar that doubles as a feeder. The lid is not meant to be opened, so that port is the only way into the box and the only way out.

03 · FEEDER

Which jar sits on the port and which drops through

The jar is inverted over the hole and rests on its body, not on its lid, so what decides is the body diameter: it has to cover the hole with room to spare. The one used here is the 500 g plastic jar, Ø 88 mm, which covers it with a wide margin. Narrower containers cut it fine — 250 g jars run about Ø 71 mm and a half-kilo glass jar about Ø 75 mm — so try them on the empty box before you trust them with 1.5 kg of bees: a jar that slips through drops into the package. It is not supplied, and is only needed if the bees stay confined for long.

04 · TRANSPORT

The battens are what save the mesh

Each face carries a vertical batten on the outside that stands proud of the screen, and the lid carries two more, one at each end, overhanging the outline. That stops the mesh being crushed against another cage or against the side of the van, and gives you somewhere to grip without pushing your fingers into the screen.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is a cage for MAKING packages: you fill it by shaking bees off the frames through a funnel, and empty it by tipping them into the destination hive. It is not a nucleus box: there is no rebate or runner for frames of any format, and a Dadant Blatt top bar alone measures 47 cm, a Dadant US one 48 cm — neither goes in lengthways along the 40 cm of the box. Nor is it the tool for collecting a swarm settled on a branch.