👑 Queen Handling Protocols: Introduction, Banking and Safe Transport
A practical operations guide to introducing new queens, banking spares safely, and transporting mated queens without losing viability.
A caged mated queen sits between two hive frames while the colony's workers cluster around her, chewing through a candy plug over simulated hours until she is finally exposed — and the colony either calms into an accepting guard circle or balls tightly around her.
🔬 What It Demonstrates
Acceptance risk during queen introduction is driven by cage method, colony receptiveness, queenless duration, and ambient temperature — the same variables that matter for banking spare queens and transporting them safely.
🎮 How to Use
Pick a cage type, set the colony's receptiveness, queenless duration and temperature, then speed up time and watch the candy plug deplete. When it opens, the predicted acceptance chance decides whether the queen is welcomed or balled.
💡 Did You Know?
A slow candy-plug release lets the queen's pheromones diffuse through the colony for a day or more before direct contact — this gradual scent hand-off is why candy-plug cages have far higher acceptance rates than dropping a queen straight onto the comb.
An interactive 3D queen-introduction cage between hive frames where you tune cage type, colony receptiveness, queenless duration and temperature, then watch the candy plug deplete and the worker retinue either calm into an accepting guard circle or ball around the queen.
3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install