§ XVI. QUEEN-CAGES.
These are small receptacles made of close wire or perforated zinc, just large enough to contain the queen with a few of her acknowledged subjects, and their use is on the occasion of her introduction to a new hive. The new queen is by this means protected from the primal hostility of the bees, but at the same time so much communication is permitted as suffices to familiarise them gradually with her presence. It is one of the characteristics of the bee nature that, however distressed they may be at the loss of their old queen, and however eagerly at work to produce a successor, they will not usually receive such at once from an artificial source. They will, however, supply her with food even when longing to transfix her with their stings.
We have two kinds of cage for this purpose. One of them is a wire dome to be placed over the queen, when with a card carefully slipped underneath she can be kept secure until the hive is prepared to receive her favourably. It is nearly the same as Kleine's cage for protecting royal cells, as described under "Queen-Rearing" ([Chap. V. § vii.]). Another cage, devised and strongly recommended by "A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper," is flat in form and neatly made of wire net; it is two inches deep, one and a quarter wide, and three-eighths of an inch thick; the top is of the same material, and projects one-eighth of an inch all round as a flange to prevent slipping too far between the combs. The door consists of stronger wires reaching across the bottom of the cage; these are fixed at one end, and have two more wires fastened to them at the other, which wires pass up at the corners and are brought out at the top, where a push with the thumb will cause the bottom to project open. Into this cage we consider there is more difficulty in introducing the queen than into the other, as she has to be taken hold of with the thumb and finger and passed within the narrow opening; and though some of the cages are made with an entry-valve at the top, the risk of injuring the queen remains, in our opinion, greater than with the domed cage. The mode of procedure with each of these will be found described under "Introducing New Queens" ([Chap. V. § viii.]).