[Marsh]

I have 4 queen cells on one of my nucs and I would like to "harvest" all the queens. Question is: can I cut out each Queen Cell, put it in a "cup" or "cage" and attach back within the Nuc or a full sized hive, BEFORE it hatchs? What can I purchase and who sells such "cups" or "cages"?
Thanks for your input!

 

[johng]

The California mini cages are made to go over a queen cell so you can hatch out virgins. But, it maybe tricky fitting one over a natural queen cell. They are made to fit right over grafted queen cells. Or you could use some #8 hardware cloth to make a cage to fit over the queen cell.

But, you can save your self a lot of trouble by just cutting the cells out and moving them into the hive where you want a new queen. Queen cells are normally pretty easy to get accepted when requeening or making splits.