queen excluder , yes or no

[Amari]

I don't use mine now except to keep a queen at home for a couple of days when hiving a swarm

I presume therefore that brood is laid in the super(s). How then do you extract the honey?

 

[pargyle]

So ... having now done what I suggest other people do ... I went searching the internet !

Without a QE there is always the chance that the Queen will lay brood in the supers as she has free access to those areas ... but, for a hobby beekeeper, this is not a major problem as you either wait until the brood has hatched and then harvest the whole super or just harvest those frames that don't have brood in them and return the rest to the super until they are brood free.

The Queen will, generally, lay brood alongside brood so she is not, normally, encouraged to move upwards into the super unless the space for laying in the Brood box is restricted.

In addition, the bees will usually put an arc of honey in the frames over the top of the brood areas and the Queen will not, generally, cross this to lay above it.

There is a suggestion that bees that are allowed to build drone comb in the quantity they want in the brood box are less likely to seek out any new soft wax in the super comb to remodel for drone cells making it, again, less likely that there will be brood in the supers.

There is also a suggestion that, when bees are given unrestricted access to the whole hive, honey production is increased (Presumably why Finnie doesn't use QE's).

As Tom says, It will be interesting to hear what people actually going QE less experience and how they handle it. Over to you Pete ... how would you manage with 400 hives and no QE's - or is it impossible ?

 

[Amari]

So ... having now done what I suggest other people do ... I went searching the internet !
Without a QE there is always the chance that the Queen will lay brood in the supers as she has free access to those areas ... but, for a hobby beekeeper, this is not a major problem as you either wait until the brood has hatched and then harvest the whole super or just harvest those frames that don't have brood in them and return the rest to the super until they are brood free.


If brood is laid in the supers it will subsequently make those frames susceptible to wax moth e.g. when supers are stored over winter.

 

[Walrus]

I presume therefore that brood is laid in the super(s). How then do you extract the honey?

Regarding laying in "supers", yes without a QX some laying happens upstairs but as the brood area contracts it is cleaned up and used for nectar. Sometimes get a bit of pollen too. The frames next to the brood nest tend to be left for the bees for winter stores and the "clean" ones higher up get extracted.

When hiving a swarm QX goes on floor (below BB) to keep HM indoors

 

[oliver90owner]

If brood is laid in the supers it will subsequently make those frames susceptible to wax moth e.g. when supers are stored over winter

There lies one myth. Is a shallow a super or a brood box? Some clearly fail to differentiate, and assume that all shallows are always supers. Either plain sloppy use of terminology or worse - they don't know! It is little wonder new beeks are misled.

And so what if the brooded wax is more susceptible to wax moth? Even if not brooded in, it is clearly susceptible to wax moth, just less so! Be a beekeeper and store your frames - yes, shallows deeps or extra deeps (for National users) and shallows, mediums, deeps, jumbos and likely others (for Langstroth) properly. Or are you a wait and hope sort of keeper of bees?

 

[beeno]

If brood is laid in the supers it will subsequently make those frames susceptible to wax moth e.g. when supers are stored over winter

There lies one myth. Is a shallow a super or a brood box? Some clearly fail to differentiate, and assume that all shallows are always supers. Either plain sloppy use of terminology or worse - they don't know! It is little wonder new beeks are misled.

And so what if the brooded wax is more susceptible to wax moth? Even if not brooded in, it is clearly susceptible to wax moth, just less so! Be a beekeeper and store your frames - yes, shallows deeps or extra deeps (for National users) and shallows, mediums, deeps, jumbos and likely others (for Langstroth) properly. Or are you a wait and hope sort of keeper of bees?

Poison and deserves apology in my book.

 

[Teebeeaitch]

Are they a must? The answer is no and it makes no difference if you are new or not, the answer is still no. Rather than listen to me, I would say read what Michael Bush says about them. If you don’t agree with him, then use them by all means but I would say the bees are happier without them.

 

[Hivemaker.]

And take care as solution is pretty corrosive.

Yes, need to take care with lots of the various chemicals we use.

 

[mbc]

Are they a must? The answer is no and it makes no difference if you are new or not, the answer is still no. Rather than listen to me, I would say read what Michael Bush says about them. If you don’t agree with him, then use them by all means but I would say the bees are happier without them.

I'd rather listen to someone a bit closer to home and used to our conditions myself.
I believe that the heavy and steady nature of the honey flows in Nebraska have an influence on the question, as a queen is unlikely to cross a solid block of honey to stretch her nest vertically, whereas the nature of the Spring flow hereabouts seems to be very variable, ranging from sudden and heavy to non existent, intermittent, sometimes of short duration and sometimes running on from April all the way through to the Summer.
In my experience, without the dissuasion of solid honey above her or a qx a queen will quite often lay her nest in a tall narrow shape right through every box available, so called chimneying, sometimes leaving the lower boxes almost deserted.
I'm a big fan of queen excluders for the previously stated reasons of beekeeper convenience, both for swarm control and honey harvesting. I also go along with the notion that the round wire excluders are far superior to any other type I've seen.

 

[JohnRoss]

I dont use them. The honey seems to act as a kind of excluder. In my (limited) experiance the queen will always be down stairs near the brood. I would advise however to have plenty of equipment because an unrestricted queen can lay up two national broodboxes and a super. That is alot of bees, and when the honey flow comes on be prepared to be adding up to two supers a week.

 

[oliver90owner]

Change that little word 'up' for 'in' and then I will most certainly agree with you, but not if you mean completely filling the three boxes with brood. Excluding calling a shallow brood box a super, of course.

RAB

 

[BeeJayBee]

Is a shallow a super or a brood box?

If frames have had brood in them then they are part of the brood area.

I do tend to agree that there is sometimes a problem with terminology, in that some people always refer to shallow boxes and shallow frames as 'supers' - even in a one-size-box system.

In my experience, without the dissuasion of solid honey above her or a qx a queen will quite often lay her nest in a tall narrow shape right through every box available, so called chimneying, sometimes leaving the lower boxes almost deserted.
I'm a big fan of queen excluders for the previously stated reasons of beekeeper convenience, both for swarm control and honey harvesting. I also go along with the notion that the round wire excluders are far superior to any other type I've seen.

I tried one colony without a queen excluder last year, just to see what happened. She laid right through the boxes, so none of them could properly have been called a 'super'.

 

[SteveJ]

The guy who wrote this book doesn't use excluders or as he calls them a Queen Restrictor.

The Jefferson Beekeeping Guide

To quote him personally.
The best place for a Queen Excluder is hanging on a nail in the shed until it gets thrown out.

SteveJ

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That's his opinion but most deem him to be 'unconventional' so I'll make my own mind up on that one

 

[JohnRoss]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection

 

[Teebeeaitch]

"In my experience, without the dissuasion of solid honey above her or a qx a queen will quite often lay her nest in a tall narrow shape right through every box available, so called chimneying, sometimes leaving the lower boxes almost deserted.
I'm a big fan of queen excluders for the previously stated reasons of beekeeper convenience, both for swarm control and honey harvesting. I also go along with the notion that the round wire excluders are far superior to any other type I've seen."


I think I see the difference here if someone thinks in terms of how to restrict for ones benefit, be it by excluder or solid honey band. Brood in every box is not a problem for me, in fact I would not want to discourage it. Even with chimneying, will the brood cells in the upper box not eventually be backfilled with honey as the season progresses? If one is not concerned about honey in brood cells, swarm control and large unlimited brood nests, then running an unlimited brood nest should not be a problem

(Note that I avoided the terms super, shallow, medium, etc, etc.)

 

[oliver90owner]

The only real problem is OSR. Apart from that I would only really use one these days to restrict the queen to a part of the hive so she is easier to locate, to reduce the boxes towards autumn or demareeing for queen cell encouragement. Yes, I have had 'chimneying', but that is normally associated with giving them far too much space in springtime. So I don't get that problem these days, and that explanation likely debunks yet another beekeeping myth.

RAB

 

[Graham40]

No I don't use them unless I have shallows directly over a single standard or 14x12 brood box, my preference is double or triple brood box's this normally suffices as space for the queen they do like to go vertical but after swapping a few frames around to provide a honey barrier in the 2nd or 3rd brood box I can start adding standard depth suppers.. also means they've got round to drawing out comb in the upper broodbox. As I start the oilseed rape with a few starter frames in the upper broodbox and undrawn foundation.. Generally if i have an excluder on they tend to pack the nest out with honey first before going upstairs, so always have drawn comb above the nest in the suppers or your asking for trouble.. undrawn supper comb to the outsides or on the ones without the excluders..

 

[sugarbush]

I am interested to know from the people that don’t use queen excluders do you just allow the bees and queen the full run of the boxes and come the end of the season extract everything that is capped honey.

I own a few, well at least one that I know where it is. I cant even remember the last time I put one on a hive. The queen has run of the boxes, but she rarely leaves the lowest boxes and once the honey dome is in place around the brood she will not cross it.

I cut down split production hives so they are queenless when the main flow is on.. this causes the nurse bees to quickly become foragers as they do not have eggs and larva to care for. That way the work force is maximized for honey making while the making of honey is good.

I just can't think of any good reason to use an excluder. In 25 years I have never seen a queen lay vertically in a hive. On this side of the pond the queens keep the brood near the entrance. A good queen will fill two deep boxes and sometimes the bottom of a third in the spring, but as fall approaches and the brood nest shrinks that third box will get backfilled with honey on the fall flow.

 

[Tom Bick]

Thanks SB I may just give this ago this year on a couple of hives, but perhaps after my first super is almost full just to give me the extra bit of confidence.