EPO Section Cage for Hive Frame

01 · HOW IT BREAKS THE CYCLE

First no brood, then a trap

With the queen shut in the cassette, laying is concentrated in a minimal space and no new capped brood forms. Within a few weeks all the varroa in the hive is in the phoretic phase, on adult bees, with no refuge in which to breed.

Releasing the clip lets the queen out onto the confined frame, where she lays heavily. The mites, having had nowhere to reproduce, invade that comb as a last resort. Once it is capped you remove the frame and melt it: the mites go with it.

02 · THE CALENDAR

The days you cannot improvise

Day 0: cassette mounted on a frame with foundation, queen inside, gate closed and clip on, inside a full frame isolation cage in the centre of the nest. Day 16: remove the clip only, and the queen goes out onto the trap comb. Day 25: the cage comes out; the trap comb stays in the centre of the nest.

Days 30-32: the comb is removed and melted. If the brood is not fully capped you can wait until 35-36, but not a day beyond: as soon as the bees emerge, the trapped varroa is released and six weeks of work are lost.

03 · WHAT IT DOES NOT REPLACE

It is management, not treatment

This is a biotechnical method: no active substance is applied, so there is nothing that could stay behind in the wax or the honey, and no active ingredient for varroa to become resistant to.

For the same reason it does not replace the authorised veterinary treatment that applies: it goes alongside it and takes load off it. The maker cites efficacies near 90 % in the European protocols it draws on; read that for what it is, the supplier's figure.

04 · THE METAL

Galvanised, and for a reason

It is made entirely of galvanised metal rather than plastic: it regulates temperature better around a queen shut in for two weeks, it disinfects without trouble and it gives off no smell.

It mounts with simple DIY on any standard frame — Dadant, Langstroth or Layens — or straight onto drawn comb. It comes with a sliding gate and a removable locking clip.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It also needs a full frame isolation cage, which houses the assembly for the first 25 days.