As a commercial queen producer I have used JZBZ plastic queen
cages to ship my queen for the past couple years. They are very
handy both for the queen producer and the beekeeper.
 
Used for introduction in nucs they give very good acceptance.  In
my opinion the JZBZ cage corrects one of the major problem of the
standard tree hole wooden cage.  With the tree whole cage the
time required for the bees of the host colony to eat up the candy
is not predictable.  Sometimes the queen is released too soon,
sometime only 7 days after introduction.  Neither is good.
 
Some of my customers report that acceptance is full size colonies
is not good at all with JZBZ cages.  I experienced myself bad
results at certain occasions.  One Manitoba producer told me that
he will never use JZBZ cages again.  Robert Page from California
told me that according to his tests, the queens get a lot of foot
damage when they are used for banking.  I never bank queens but
some of my customers do and I had reports of queens killed while
banked!
 
I am wondering if I should switch to another type of cage.
(Maybe I would give a try to the new Koehnen cage.)  I would like
to hear other people's experience on this before I make my
decision.
 
 
 _______________________________               ~
|_____JEAN-PIERRE CHAPLEAU______|       ~       bee breeder
  |1282, rang 8, Saint-Adrien,|              ~
  | Quebec,  Canada,  J0A 1C0 |  vice president of the Canadian Honey Council
  |  phone:   (819) 828-3396  |   ~           ~
  |  fax:     (819) 828-2248  |   ~    ~
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