Hi Carmenie,
we use to make the candy mixing honey with iced sugar till it gets hard
enough and resistant to the heat. Other queen rearer may use corn sirup
instead of honey to avoid the pollution from the candy with AFB spores,
nosema, etc.
But the use of honey and iced sugar does the job well. The amount to be
mixed should be determined by yourself.
The best queen cages for us are the wooden one, that with the three holes in
the center and two on the edges. The JzBz cages are far more handy, but the
problem is that the queen can't hide themself from agresive bees and most
sure, she will get bite, usually on the legs, and will be superseded later
because of that. The wooden cages are more dificult to introduce in the
hive, but the results in queen acceptance are far better.
Last tip: before  introduce the new queen, you should wait at last one week,
then look for queen cells, destroy all of them toroughly, introduce the cage
and then wait again, at last, for a week before checking for their
acceptance.
Best regards,
Andreas Schück
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