Miller queen introduction cage

01 · HOW IT WORKS

The candy is a timer

The queen goes in through the long channel, and both channels are then plugged with candy — Apifonda, Apipasta or similar. Hung between two brood frames, the colony starts eating the plug from the outside while the queen waits inside: during those hours the bees smell her, touch her through the mesh, and her scent mixes with the nest's.

The short channel carries an excluder grid: the nurse bees come in that way to feed her, but the queen cannot fit through. That makes the long one her only way out, and that is why the candy works as a timer: by the time it is gone, the colony has already spent a day living with her.

02 · THE FAILURE TO AVOID

If she is still in on day three, open it

The candy is said to go in about 24 hours, but that depends on how much you use and how hard it is: a soft plug disappears in a day; a whole channel packed with dried candy can take weeks. Use a plug, do not fill the tunnel.

And above all, check on day three or four. It is perfectly possible for the nurses to have got in while the queen is still shut away: all it takes is for the exit to be blocked with propolis, with hardened candy, or for the channels to have been mixed up. If you open the hive and see her inside with the colony treating her well through the mesh, release her by hand. What you cannot do is leave her in there for twenty days.

03 · WHAT DECIDES ACCEPTANCE

Not the cage, the colony

Before you hang anything, the colony has to be genuinely queenless and free of queen cells. Going through frame by frame and cutting out every queen cell is what weighs most on the outcome: leave one and the colony already has its own plan, and the queen you bought is surplus, whatever cage she is in.

It also helps not to introduce during a dearth or with robbing about, and not to open the hive daily to look: every inspection breaks the very process you are trying to encourage.

04 · MATERIAL

Wood and mesh, and why that matters

Wood and wire mesh rather than plastic: the mesh lets the contact through — antenna to antenna, food mouth to mouth — which is exactly what gets her accepted. And the wire hanger keeps her in the right place, between two brood frames rather than lying on the floor.

It is cleaned by scraping and lasts seasons.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is an introduction cage, not a shipping one: