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  • From: Walter Starks <walterstarks AT icloud.com>
  • To: Phil DeGuzman <phil.deguzman AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>, "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] metal queen excluders
  • Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:00:04 -0400

You can also use an Imirie shim. 


I'm trying them for the first time this year. There's no major flow yet, so remains to be seen how well they'll work.

Some beekeepers just offset the supers a little to allow enough space for the foragers to enter and exit through the gap created.

______

Walter




Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 20, 2015, at 4:04 PM, Phil DeGuzman <phil.deguzman AT gmail.com> wrote:

Sounds interesting. I was definitely hoping to separate the "extractable" honey from the survival stores I would leave behind- the queen excluder would prevent the queen from laying into the extract frames. In my hives I definitely noticed that there was almost nothing in the supers above the queen excluder. So it makes sense that if I give them an easier access path then maybe they would use the upper mediums more effectively.

Another beekeeper I spoke with is experimenting with creating an upper-entrance to make it easier for foragers to off-load their goods without traversing the inside of the hive (He made a 1" plug using a hole saw so he could replace it if his experiment failed. Has anyone else experimented with this idea? Drawbacks I envision(but could be wrong): yet another robber entrance to defend, I wondered if the pheremones would telegraph through the hive if the workers weren't walking past the queen frames as they enter/exit, any issues with moisture level variation given the extra airflow?

Thank all!
Phil

On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 4:03 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:
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:
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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