Queen excluders

[Trevor Mansell]

Can anyone recomend good queen excluders. The last ones I bought were junk.

[Michael Bush]

Junk? In what way? Not durable? Not the right spacing? What problem are you hoping to avoid with different excluders.

[lloyd@rossrounds.com]

Check out Kelley's. I must own 200, all wood bound. I don't know how Kelley does it for the price, but I am glad they do! www.kelleybees.com (http://www.kelleybees.com)

[Trevor Mansell]

Spacing is the main issue. The queens keep slipping into the supers.

[Chef Isaac]

I read once... either from a book or from this forum that if the situation is right.... to much smoke or something of the like that the queen WILL squeeze through any excluder.

[Michael Bush]

I agree, too much smoke will drive any queen through an excluder. But excluders also vary in spacing some.

But then I rarely use one so I'm not that sure what all of the various ones measure for spacing.

[Trevor Mansell]

its not the smoke its the excluders. I dont smoke the entrance before I go thru the bees. I put boxes on and come back to find my supers full of brood . Then I find the queen and put her back down below, and replace the excluder.Im just trying to find a company that has a good reputation for good excluders.

[BjornBee]

Trevor,
Sometimes you have to "backdoor" the question to find the answer your looking for. If I was to start a topic "My bees will not go through the excluder", or "What does everyone think of excluders?", you would have many people that swear that bees will not go through esxcluders at all. Then you can easily ask a follw-up question as to "where did you buy your excluder?". smile.gif

I have used metal, metal wood bound, and two types of plastic. I bought them several year ago. Not sure where. (mannlake, dadant, betterbee, brushymountain, or Kelly's) My favorites are the plastics. One I have is bright white plastic that is very thin, which allows me to turn them sideways causing an inch gap to let workers move more freely between the brood and honey chambers. The other plastic is a more transparent type of plastic and is much thicker(>1/8?) and I can not do this turn. In any case both work well and I have not had problems with queens going through. I also have metal but use them only if I run out of plastic.

The plastc can be scraped cleaned and stacks at 200 in the same space as 10 metal wood bound excluders.

One thing I am merely mentioning for others to keep in mind, and not sure if this applies to you is that when doing inspections many beekeepers cause the queens to magically move through the excluder. This is how they do it, and I have seen this manipulation performed many times...

Beekeeper places the lid on the ground. Removes supers and places them on the lid. Removes the queen excluder and leans it against the hive. (afterall its not heavy and can easily be placed where it can be grabbed later) They now are prepared to inspect for brood and after looking in the first brood box, they sit in on the stack off to the side. Yes, on the stack of honey supers. If the queen is in that brood box and it is now sitting on top of the stack, the sun is now forcing the queen back down through the supers. And when the hive is closed up the queen is above the excluder. To be found at the next inspection. This is something I have caught myself doing, and have seen many others do. Stacking honey and brood boxes together not knowing where the queen is. (Or thinking she can't be in that last box I just inspected, and then never really finding her in the following boxes inspected after that one. But you found eggs, and called it a day.)

Other possibilities could include damaged excluders, two queen hives, manipulation of supers or adding of excluders after eggs have been laid in the supers (for those who like the bees to start working the supers to get them started before adding the excluder), lack of adequate brood chamber area and the lack of a honey barrier at the top of the brood chamber (I know, this is a good way for elimination of excluders), and sometimes just having small queens and bees.

Not sure if anyone is making smaller excluders for the smallcell beekeeper. But I am sure most are standard at some measurment. I really have never had a problem with any excluders I bought. This is why I sometimes like to look at all other factors. Because I am not sure there is a big difference in excluders to solve the problem you have.

What kind of queens do you have and where did you buy your last excluders?

[BjornBee]

BTW, if nobody actually mentions a company that has a good reputation for excluders, it tells you two things. One, that they are all pretty much the same in the excluders out there on the market. Two, that you have a problem that not many have or has given thought too. Maybe its just you. smile.gif

[Michael Bush]

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/excludertypes.html

Dave measured a lot of different excluders and found a range of measurments from 4.14mm to 4.38 mm.

[Trevor Mansell]

Ive used excluders since the begining, never had a problem hith honey production. I bought around 500 excluders from better bee and they were crap. looked nice but after close inspection they were full of holes. when I went to Dadant I saw the same boxes of excluders so I know not to buy from them. The person at Kelly told me that only 2 companies in the U.S. make the actual excluder part. So I know what two suppliers carry the bad ones. I bought one from Kelly wich seems to be O.K. ,as a trial.
Wood bound excluders look nice but they can cause alot of bur comb between the brood nest and the super. Plastic ones are nice but tend to crack. Zinc ones are ok but Some people swear they cut the bees wings.
So I guess my question is has anyone tried Mann Lake's or Kelly's wire bound excluders on a large scale. If so are they happy with them.

[BjornBee]

MB,
Point being is that there is no research indicating that none of them would work(I am assuming). Some of the variances were in the wire made to manufacturer the excluder to begin with. I am sure that none are laser or laboratory certified within some microscopic variance factor. Some of the ones he mentioned would be very hard to come by. I can assume that with the metal and plastic, and forgetting the european and older models tested, that the variance is probably within some range that it would not matter as too which type is used.

I have used all four I previous mentioned, and had not seen a problem with anything on the market today. It is also one item that I have not heard anyone else bring up, mention, or suggest being a problem. But maybe thats just me. Perhaps a poll can be made to find out just how many beekeepers are having this problem.

What was the research data used for in collecting all the sizes between the excluders? Has this been a previous discussion or problem? Is there any articles or other studies that have indicated which ones work and which ones do not? I hope all that data collecting for excluders all the way back a hundred years was for something other than entertainment value classified under "trivia".

[BjornBee]

Trevor, you are now mentioning alot of other criteria for excluders than just whether a queen can get through it. Something I never had a problem with, but hey thats just me. Now its plastic cracking, burr comb, zinc damaging bees wings, and...???. You mention a trial (good results) with one bought from Kelly's. How about just going with the one you have already found? Or is it price, color, or some other detail yet to be brought to light? smile.gif

And please give betterbee a chance, they are beekeepers just like you and me. smile.gif Thats the post I read everytime I mention betterbee and the service and quality I have recieved in the past. Just thought I would save someone else from the bleeding heart tears they would shed in writing it.

[Michael Bush]

I've seldom seen a queen go through an excluder. Usually the cause was being driven by smoke.

Most of the discussions on excluder spacing have been by people concerned that small cell queens will go through them. I don't use excluders much, but on the occasions that I have, I haven't had any "small cell queens" get through them. But then I don't see much difference in the size of the queens, myself. I haven't tried to measure them since queens in general vary so much in size anyway.

[lloyd@rossrounds.com]

I only run 200 hives. About 1/2 for extraction and 1/2 for comb honey. I use excluders on all my extraction hives and on none of my comb honey hives. I also use excluders for many other things such as mice guards, split devices, etc. That said, I know other commercial beekeepers who run up to 3,000 hives for extraction, all with excluders.

AFAIK, the consensus among commercial beekeepers is that the bees don't care if the excluders are full of burr comb. They go right through them even if they are 70%+ closed with burr comb. However, beekeepers seem to care a lot, and want their excluders clean. So be it.

We never scrape or otherwise clean an excluder. The main difference between wood bound and not, is price. Period. I like wood bound mostly because I am 65 years old and have always had them. Secondarily because I am terrified I would leave one not wood bound on the hive all winter, because I could not see it was there, and kill a prefectly good hive because the queen could not move with the cluster.

I tried some plastic, and they are junk. I could not get them off without ripping them. Another example of suppliers introducing products without ever trying them under field conditions. Maybe current ones are better...

Hope this helps.

[Joel]

We've used just about every type available, never had problems with queens getting through any except the occciasional virgin. We use all plastic now for the reasons Bjorn states. I prefer the rounded plastic over the flat. Woodbound leaves too much "bee space" for burr comb. New excluder will causes supers to tend to slide forward if the hive isn't level. The 1st. coating of propolis & wax will soon resolve that issue. We have great production but also allow an upper entrance for field bees to enter without crowding the brood chamber. Like Llyod we use them on extracted and not on comb(except cut comb). You should be smoking the entrance before you work your bees to mask alarm phermone from the guard bees. Not doing so is causing allot of unnecessary distraction when your breaking into upper supers and increases the likelyhood of aggressive behavior. We use metal excluders under stored equipment for with comb to keep out the vermin. Make sure your excluders are covering the entire space between the supers too.

[magnet-man]

I have some hives with upper entrances and a queen excluder. The lower entrance is closed down to ½ an inch. If the hive swarms and I know it, I will reduce the upper entrance and open the lower one up all the way, that way the virgin queen will likely return to the lower entrance and thus the brood nest. If I don’t catch it, the virgin may end up going back into the hive via the top entrance. Since I mark my queens, I can tell if it is a new queen.

[JDI]

Has anyone considered the possibility that all or most queens can get through queen excluder but for some reason prefer not to? I wonder if there may be a genetic tendency that affects willingness to move through them. If smoke can drive a queen through as suggested then it would seem that they don't stay in brood boxes because they have to as much as because they prefer to. I have had large queens in the past that I would have bet money that they could not fit through an excluder and they did, repeatedly, to lay eggs in the honey supers. I guess my point is that the excluder may not have to be some rigid measurement or absolute width (within reason). Maybe we should be raising queens from queens who do not end up in the supers. Just a thought.
James Ireland

[Dick Allen]

The remarks about too much smoke driving queens through queen excluders???? When it's absolutely, positively necessary to find a queen and looking at all frames several times doesn't reveal her, an old trick is to smoke all the bees through an excluder set on top of an empty box. The queen and drones are the only ones left on top of the excluder.

[JDI]

I have used this technique many times, as well. But if you drove the bees down through the excluder and then left the box above the excluder empty (no frames) would she eventually move down through the excluder? I certainly don't know but I suspect that many queens would.

[Ian]

>>I go thru the bees. I put boxes on and come back to find my supers full of brood . Then I find the queen and put her back down below, and replace the excluder.Im just trying to find a company that has a good reputation for good excluders.

I have never had that problem. I use the good old wire bound, not even sure who makes them, but they never cause me any problems. Using excluders on 300+ hives.

I have found virgin queens getting above into the supers. Wheather it is through a crack in the top of the hive bodies, or pushing through the excluder, I dont know. Once and a while I will even have a two hive going!!