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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Phil DeGuzman <phil.deguzman AT gmail.com>, Randy Chellis <crandytoo AT aol.com>
  • Cc: "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] metal queen excluders
  • Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 16:03:36 -0400

Phil & Randy,

Queen excluders are rectangular. They are made to match the rectangular shape of a standard hive body. If you place them perpendicular to the hive body (sideways) rather than parallel (normal), a bit sticks out on both sides. However the important thing is that, inside the box, about an inch is left uncovered ("unexcluded") on both ends of the frames. Since a well-behaved queen operates toward the center of the frames, she isn't likely to traverse the areas on the ends that are open to the top. But worker bees can use the ends to come and go from above and therefore store honey up top somewhat unimpeded. This strategy can be useful if your bees don't like working through an excluder because you can exclude the queen but don't (much) hinder the workers transporting honey. I've never had a queen violate my trust by going around a sideways excluder.

I often do this in the spring before there is a honey band at the top of the brood nest. Once there is an inch or two of solid capped honey at the top of the frames (directly below the honey supers), an excluder isn't needed, assuming the queen is cooperative.

I don't like doing this with my wooden-framed excluders. I suspect that it creates too big of an entrance that could encourage robbing, although maybe that wouldn't really be an issue. The unframed metal and plastic ones seem to work fine. The bees may caulk up the small gap between the boxes with propolis; that isn't a problem at all. If the gap is large enough for the bees to pass through and you don't want them to do so, that is Use #794 for duct tape. It makes a wonderful temporary bee barrier.

Experiment, have fun, let us know what happens!

Randall Austin



On 4/19/2015 9:00 AM, Phil DeGuzman wrote:
D2F2646A-B15D-41B7-86FE-2C7346008A49 AT gmail.com" type="cite">
I'm curious what "sideways" means...and what the purpose is. I gave up on queen excluders after losing both hives where I tried them last year.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 19, 2015, at 08:36, Randy Chellis via ocba <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:



while at randalls house for the bee school field day, I noticed he had some metal queen excluders that were installed sideways and I thought that was great so I have in-turn done the same with one of my hives.  my question is, will the bees seal the cracks off or do they just fly in and out of them ( my ladies seem to be very protective of anyone or thing walking around their hive now)  and do you leave the excluder in for the duration of the honey flow season?  or do I remove when I am ready to install another sooper?

thanks randy
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