Deep Frame Introduction Cage

The queen introduction cage allows you to introduce a queen to a difficult colony by adding her to a frame with brood about to emerge. Remove all the workers from the frame, and put the frame in the isolator with the queen. As the bees emerge, they will look after the queen and give the rest of the colony time to adapt to her pheromones.

Be careful to insert and remove the frame GENTLY and SLOWLY if the queen is on it, since she can be killed if she is scraped between the frame and the cage wall.

The cage occupies more space than a single frame, so two frames should be removed to make ample room for it in a deep hive body. One deep frame is inserted into the cage, and the solid cover is placed on top. The cover sits on top of the frame's top bar and can be removed to give access to the frame without the need to remove the cage itself. Since the top edges of the cage are flush with the sides of our wooden hive bodies, the queen will be perfectly contained. If you are using equipment of different dimensions, you may want to press some spare wax on either side of the top bar to absolutely ensure that the queen cannot leave the cage.