Stainless Queen Isolation Cages

Crafted from premium 304 grade stainless steel, our queen isolation cage sets the new standard for durability and corrosion resistance in beekeeping equipment. 

Fits one full depth frame with either 33mm or 35mm end bars.

Applications:

1. Queen Breeding: Perfect for queen breeders to ensure optimal larvae age for grafting, facilitating superior queen production.
2. Winter use in warmer climates: Ideal for limiting brood production during winter months, effectively reducing varroa mite reproduction. Reduces the colonies food requirements due to less brood.
3. Swarm control in Spring: The speed of colony growth can be controlled with the use of the cage at specific times to enable the colony to reach peak hive numbers at the start of the honey flow without swarming first.
4. Varroa Control: See the procedure below:-

A. Introduce a clean empty brood frame to the cage.
B. Find the queen and enclose in the cage.
C. Position the cage into the middle of the brood nest.
D. A good queen will lay in virtually every cell within 2 days.
E. After 26-28 days, there will be virtually no capped brood and all mites will be exposed to treatment. Can be 23 – 25 days if there is no drone brood.
F. Vaporize with Oxalic Acid for virtually complete mite elimination.
G. Whenever desired, the frame of brood with queen can be removed from cage and added back to brood nest.
H. The cage can be removed from the hive or left at the side of the brood box with a food frame enclosed until needed.

Specifications.

• 40mm inside width, 48mm outside width.
• 459mm long x 242mm high.
• The top cap is 484mm long.
• The air gap in the mesh is 4.3mm. Bees can take pollen through successfully.
• Has a clip-on cap which is held firmly down when the next box or hive mat is added above it.

Internal hive dimensions must be the Langstroth standard to ensure the cage fits properly and there are no gaps for the queen to escape.

Many beekeepers ensure their queens are marked so they are easy to find for caging when required. The labour cost for this procedure is negligible when compared to the cost of resurrecting colonies killed by varroa mites!

Three-frame cage available here.

As we see more and more varroa resistance to the synthetic miticide strips, beekeepers are turning to organic acids for successful varroa control. There is no evidence worldwide of the mites getting resistant to them. The stainless steel cages are very resilient in an acid environment and will not oxidise and deteriorate like galvanised steel products.

It pays to get quality!