Queen Excluder

[hoodswoods]

Is it true that NO bees will cross the excluder until the queen has visited? If the bees ever get to the point of brooding out (or even starting) my second deep brood box, I plan on trying to get honey (first year) somewhere down the line - not a requirement, just trying to go with the flow.

I've read in some postings that southern bees (ya'll) sometimes don't build out 2 deep brood boxes. So I guess my question is: did I make a mistake by introducing a whole new brood box (bees are extremely active/lots of pollen, despite weather) & when I introduce my honey supers, should I give it/them a few days before excluding the queen?

I have the feeling that Michael Bush will just direct me to his website, where all things unknown are brought to light.

[iwombat]

Bees will eventually cross an excluder. They'll do it sooner if there's comb up above. I don't use them, but the people I know that do let a little comb-building occur before putting the excluder in.

[Ravenseye]

If I have to put an excluder on and if I have mostly foundation going in the box above the excluder, I try to put a frame of comb in with the foundation. If you know where the queen is, you can pull a frame of brood (leaving the queen down below) and place that brood frame above the excluder. Keep it above the brood nest. Nurse bees will care for the brood and eventually all the brood will emerge. This has worked well for me in the past and, once the bees start working the foundation everything seems to go smoothly.

[hoodswoods]

What I would put on would be undrawn plastic foundation for my honey super(s). Makes sense to either brood or honey out a comb frame into these, vs necessarily count on mother to make the trip - she's not helping out on my second brood box so far.

You both (iwombat & Ravenseye) seem to not use the excluder very often or at all, how do you extract 'clean' honey?

[iwombat]

Most of the time the queen stays on the bottom two boxes anyway. Sometimes she goes up to the third. (I run one deep on the bottom and then mediums) I extract honey from whatever the bees decide is their surplus stores.

[hoodswoods]

so you extract visually, based on the definition of the comb. - Thanks (daughter & my grandkids live in Bonney Lake).

[iwombat]

More correctly:

I extract from supers where there is no brood being produced. It's usually box#3 and above, but not always.

[hoodswoods]

and it takes you generally how long to build up 2 boxes (say from a 5 week old nuc?)

[hoodswoods]

ignorant question, sorry - considering we're 2000 miles and climates apart. In building up a hive without packages, would you expect 2 deep boxes of brood the first year?

[iwombat]

That's something that will vary drastically depending on locale, weather and species. I'll let someone more local to you chime in on that.

Personally, I expect two boxes of brood in the first couple of months. The packages I hived beginning of April started in on their third box two weeks ago.

[Ravenseye]

I don't care about honey from old brood comb. It extracts just fine. If the queen lays some brood in the honey super, so be it. Once that first super is mostly full and I put another super on top, the queen very, very rarely makes it up that high.

[tecumseh]

as a general rule the workers are not much encouraged to cross a queen excluder with nothing there but foundation.

it is not such a bad habit to place a box of new foundation on the stack without an excluder just to get the girls to begin starting the drawing of the foundation.

or....

you can of course force the workers to pass thru the excluder by simply only allowing an entrance above the excluder. that is... all you really need to do is close off the bottom entrance and incorprate an entance(s) at the top of the stack.

there have been a few thread in the past where some of us have touched upon the basics of using a queen excluder in a proper fashion (some folks still don't seem to understand that like most tools an excluder can be utilized in an improper way). you might thumb back thru some of the old threads typically titled 'is a queen excluder a honey excluder?' or something like that....