Small cell Queen excluders

[WiredForStereo]

I just got some cheap plastic closout queen excluders from Dadant, the holes seemed smaller than I had remembered and so I compared with my wire mesh excluder and found almost half a millimeter difference, I wonder if Dadant is selling these off cheap because they are too small for normal bees?
They might just work with small cell.

Sol

[Dee A. Lusby]

Sol you wrote:
I just got some cheap plastic closout queen excluders from Dadant, the holes seemed smaller than I had remembered and so I compared with my wire mesh excluder and found almost half a millimeter difference, I wonder if Dadant is selling these off cheap because they are too small for normal bees?
They might just work with small cell.

Reply:
You'd probably have to compare the sizing to some old zinc queen excluders from a few decades ago to find out.

I think the plastic excluders are made overseas someplace, but excluders come in various opening sizes and beekeepers must be aware of this.

What is the size of the opening? I think we still have some old zinc ones now I think about it from WW2 or earlier. I can go measure and we can compare.

At very least if you don't want to use them in normal fashion, you can use them for propolis traps on top of colonies, under the top cover.

Regards,

Dee

[WiredForStereo]

I tried to measure the difference between the excluders today and found that the plastic excluder holes were about 4.05 to 4.10 millimeters while the wire mesh had 4.3 to 4.4 millimeter spacing. I would not vouch for my calipers though.

Sol

[Dave W]

Greetings . . .

Both of the following books say that the distance between the bars should be .163 inch.

The Hive and The Honey Bee, 1949, p239
ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture, 1974, p221

Dave W