This is a bee queen cage, which I designed to cage a queen bee. The goal of caging the queen is to get the bee family free of brood within 24 days (the time a bee drone needs for development from egg to hatching). After this, the bee family can be treated against varroa mites with oxalic acid, which wouldn’t work with brood present. There is a honeycomb structure on the bottom of the cage, which encourages the queen to lay eggs. Worker bees try to care for these eggs inside the cage, but as there is not enough depth inside the cage for a bee to develop, the brood attempts are always destroyed. This has the advantage that the bees smell an egg-laying queen, which keeps them happy within these 24 days without new real brood.

The height of the cage fits between two wires of my honeycomb frames, so I only need to cut a hole in the honeycombs in the center of the hive to insert the cage into a honeycomb frame.

Positive side effect: During the caging time, between early and later honey crops, I can go on holiday and don’t need to be afraid of losing a swarm.

I didn’t like the commercially available bee queen cages because of their size, cost, and function, so I tried to develop something that fits my requirements.

After 24 days of caging, I do my last honey crop, feed the bees with some food, treat them by spraying oxalic acid on all frames with bees and if available, exchange queens with new ones. Finally I set the queen free again.

The cages can be cleaned by scraping off the wax and reused next year.

I hope this helps some other beekeepers. If so, I would be happy about a “tip designer” to honour my work. And please post a picture of your printed cage under "Makes".

Thanks!