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what i found out is that the Queen excluder is of no use the first year
i found that they just really dont like to draw wax above it - might be that it rubs off the wax scales ?? but at any rate just leave the excluder off for the first year and then take it off in the winter - say .... after they stop taking fall syrup - reason here is that the cluster will move up and leave the queen to freeze and parish - then they will try to supersed the old queen and raise a winter queen which will most likely be a droner since she cant mate during the winter
on the super ..... if it has honey in it leave it on - cant hurt
do you have 2 deeps?? if soo check to see if box reversal is in need - --- to do this simply check on cluster placement -- ONLY swap is the brood circle is all in the upper box -
hope this helps
i found that they just really dont like to draw wax above it - might be that it rubs off the wax scales ?? but at any rate just leave the excluder off for the first year and then take it off in the winter - say .... after they stop taking fall syrup - reason here is that the cluster will move up and leave the queen to freeze and parish - then they will try to supersed the old queen and raise a winter queen which will most likely be a droner since she cant mate during the winter
on the super ..... if it has honey in it leave it on - cant hurt
do you have 2 deeps?? if soo check to see if box reversal is in need - --- to do this simply check on cluster placement -- ONLY swap is the brood circle is all in the upper box -
hope this helps
