Queen excluders

[Margaret Sloan]

Our bees have filled two brood boxes, and we put on a queen excluder and a honey super about 2 weeks ago. The bees don't seem to be moving up into the honey supers. Does the excluder discourage them from moving up?

I don't know if we're still in the middle of a heavy nectar flow. I still see lots blooming plants in the neighborhoods covered with working honeybees.

Thanks.

[Dundrave]

I had the same problem, I took the advise of several people on here and took mine off, I have about 15 frames of honey and nectar at this point . The queen never moved up, win win.

[high rate of speed]

It has to be a fast flow.some years we run excluders,but lately the past couple of years the flow has been to slow.They need to be totally jammed full of bees before they come up through the excluder.Good luck.

[alpha6]

Take your excluder's off before they start filling up your brood area with honey. I use the excluder's for splits and not much else anymore. No problem with them filling supers without them.

[Joseph Clemens]

As with any piece of equipment, there are ways it can be used so it produces the desired effect and there are ways to use it so it produces an undesired effect, or even no effect at all.

I used excluders for decades and often saw results that demonstrated marginal effectiveness, at best. But I finally read an article about an old research project with queen excluders. Now I feel silly that I hadn't figured this out before:

http://beesource.com/forums/showthre...ight=excluders

[tecumseh]

as joseph sezs, it's all about where you place the entrances.

[odfrank]

The flow on the penninsula is slow after June, but can perk up in September/October. You would probably be best to remove the excluder especially if you have foundation above it, which most hives are unlikely to draw out this late. Since we have lots of fall/winter honey available, you can extract most of the honey in the upper brood chamber at this time, and let them refill that rather than try to draw foundation in a third super.

[Michael Bush]

>Does the excluder discourage them from moving up?

Yes.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfaqs.htm#excluders

[gingerbee]

My queen moved up in one hive and began laying beautiful brood frames in the honey super!
My deep had old foundation, that may have been why.

I like using one because it makes looking for the queen when examing a hive so much easier, less space to check.