[BoTBees]

i have a problem with my plastic queen excluder, it seems to be traping my bees & killing them. does someone make a bee trap or what?

 

[mxr618]

I was just going to post the same thing. I have a LOT of brood in my first honey super. I pulled a bar of honey out, put the plastic queen excluder down and put the bar in a new super on top of the excluder. It didn't look like the bees were able to get through the excluder.

Does anyone have experience with this?

 

[habutti]

One thing you do not want to go cheap and that is excluders, dump the plastics and get your self some good ole metal bound excluders nothing less. I my self only use them in my queen rearing ops and only use the metals.

 

[MikeJ]

I have plastic excluders and the bees appear to have no trouble going through it. One excluder is used just as it comes. The other I put a thin frame around it.

I did have some dead bees on it last time I checked - but those were bees that got smashed by bur comb on the bottom of the super frames (some were caught half way through - could look like they died in it).

Bees may appear not able to get through but it is probably more likely they need to get used to it. I had an excluder on with a super and fed, they drew almost all the frames in 10 days. (I of course had to clear the comb of syrup so I could use it for honey).

There will be a lot of opinions not to even use excluders - you can of course try them and decide.
If a bar on the metal excluders bends, the queen will slip through... but then plastic can break and fail too.

They used to make punched zinc excluders - but I haven't seen any around.

Mike

 

[Beeslave]

Drones can't fit through an excluder. If you have them trapped above it(brood or hatched) and there is not an entrance/escape above it the drones will die with their heads stuck in the excluder trying to get out.