During the past two seasons, we have added a Queen Excluder onto our brood supers. Since we never got any surplus honey (nor drawn comb for that matter), we always assumed that it was due to being too late in the season -- after the peak of the honey-flow.
Now -- after reading through the always-excellent blog at http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/ -- I am starting to think it may have been been caused by two other reasons:
* We should've used already-drawn comb up above in the honey supers.
* The excluder itself (Yes, I am aware that some people refer to them as "Honey Excluders")
So, the issue now is that I don't have enough drawn frames to use in two medium supers. The blog above seems to suggest that I should add empty supers above the brood without the excluder (at least initially) because that may encourage more workers to travel up and draw comb in them.
Hopefully, I am also hitting the right time of the season this time around. Thoughts?
Thx for any advice.
Now -- after reading through the always-excellent blog at http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/ -- I am starting to think it may have been been caused by two other reasons:
* We should've used already-drawn comb up above in the honey supers.
* The excluder itself (Yes, I am aware that some people refer to them as "Honey Excluders")
So, the issue now is that I don't have enough drawn frames to use in two medium supers. The blog above seems to suggest that I should add empty supers above the brood without the excluder (at least initially) because that may encourage more workers to travel up and draw comb in them.
Hopefully, I am also hitting the right time of the season this time around. Thoughts?
Thx for any advice.