NICOT® CNE4 Incubator cage

01 · WHY EACH CELL IS CAGED

Two loose queens in one incubator kill each other

That is the reason, and it is no small detail: the first queen to emerge goes looking for the others and finishes them before they get out. Caging each cell separately is what lets you incubate many at once and have them all emerge. The cage also does the quiet job of controlling emergence: you know which queen has come out and when, without opening anything and without losing one in the bottom of the machine. On a run of twenty cells, that traceability is the difference between an orderly batch and a heap of anonymous queens.

02 · WHERE IT FITS IN THE SYSTEM

The CNE family is numbered, and not interchangeable

The NICOT rearing system is numbered, and it is worth having the map before ordering, because several parts look alike. The CNE3 is the cup you graft into; the CNE2, the bar that holds the cups; the CNE1, the support that goes on the frame. This one, the CNE4, is the incubator cage. And mind the two most often confused with it: the CNE5 is the round protective roller and the CNE8 the queen cell protector tube — they protect something else, at another moment. Look at the reference, not the name.

03 · AN INCUBATOR IS NOT A MIRACLE

It controls emergence; it does not fix poor rearing

As a general reference, a cell incubator works at around 34-35 °C and 50-60 % relative humidity — but the figure that governs is the one for your machine, not this one. And the other part is worth saying: an incubator does not compensate for old larvae, weak colonies or poor health. What goes in bad comes out bad. It is also worth planning the calendar before you start: from grafting, count about 24 days to emergence and another 12 to maturity, and those dates decide when you need your mating nuclei ready.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is sold by the unit: work out how many cells you incubate at a time and add a few spare, because these are small parts and they go missing. The manufacturer's reference carries «/100» because that is the bag format Nicotplast supplies them in, not the quantity you receive. And if you do not yet have an incubator, bear in mind that these cages are made for that specific use — to protect a queen cell inside the hive, the part is a different one.