Earnie Attendant Rapid Loader - EARL

The EARL is made specifically to help you load a lot of attendants into JZBZ cages rapidly.  With this tool, you can make short work of loading a lot of cages with worker rather than hunting down a single worker each time you want to load cages.  You can get into the hive and grab a 1/2 to 1 cups of bees and then close the hive back up.

The loader is designed so that the bees can crawl up into the cage by themselves.  If they are not cooperative, they can be forced to go into the cage with the plunger.  The loader is designed to load bees one at a time but after loading 4 to 5 bees, you can keep going over and over.  

Directions: 1- Turn the top of the loader counter clockwise until it stops so the plunger is engaged.  This will trap any bees in the bottom.  2 - Unscrew the bottom and scoop up a half cup of young worker bees and place them into the bottom and replace the cap.  3 -  Uncap a JZBZ cage and slide into the top.  This is a friction fit but it is designed to work with them perfectly.  It should be snug enough that you can turn over the loader and the cage will stay in place.  4 - With the plunger lowered, turn the top clockwise until it stops.  This opens the bottom of the loader so bees can crawl into the cage.  If bees are not going into the cage by themselves, then you an flip the load upside-down and shake bees into the top chamber.  Once you have a bee in there, slowly turn the lid counter-clockwise to verify that you only have one bee and it is fully inside.  Once verified, complete the counter-clockwise turn to the plunger side.  5 - If needed, lift the plunger to put the bee into the cage.  6 - Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have the desired number of attendants in the cage.  Replace with another JZBZ cage and restart from step 3.

NOTE: Only used authentic JZBZ cages.  We tested with some Amazon Chinese knock-off cages and they are skinnier and go too far into the top.

We have been asked, why isn't the bottom cup portion using translucent plastic like the top and bottom.  And we found that since bees go up toward light, it is better to keep the bees in the bottom something to go toward.  We also found that no matter what we did, we could get the plastic perfectly clear.  Since the top and bottoms are more important to see through, they made more cense to make them translucent.

NOTE:  The loader is purposely NOT vented.  Once a loading session is complete, release the unused bees from the bottom of the loader.

All hardware is stainless steel.  Product stands about 5 inches tall and is slightly more than 3 inches in diameter.