To Exclude or Not to Exclude

If you move a frame of brood above the excluder w/o the queen, it will help to move the bees through the the excluder.
Another trick is to have some space for the queen to lay in, but not a pile of space.

Sometimes I use them and other times I don't.

I laugh at people that don't know how to use excluders....but then I remember that it took me 10 years to use..not use...use...then figure out how to use them.

There was no internet back then and I didn't really have a mentor so there was a lot of mistake making going on. The nice thing about excluders is that either way isn't wrong. If you like and understand them you can use them, if you don't like them you can save some money.

some times I use them sometimes I don't if I need comb to draw out nope

Tom Fran said:

What is the consensus on whether to use queen excluders or not? I would like to hear your opinions on this matter.

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My opinion is that an excluder is a tool that can be used several ways. I use an excluder for some things, not for others.

I have supers of comb today, after being in storage for many years, because I used excluders. The supers that had brood in the comb were all destroyed by wax worms. For that reason, I use excluders as I don't have to worry about keeping stored comb safe.

I use them when I am having foundation drawn out. I use SC in the brood chambers, but have LC in the honey supers. I don't want the queen moving up into the LC.

Yes and no.

I'm using them next week for requeening purposes. I don't use them to keep queens out of honey supers which is what I suppose this poll is about.

Wayne

A queen excluder is a valuable tool. Most hobby beekeepers that do not use one when adding surplus honey supers because they read that they are "honey excluders" should try doing half their colonies with and half without. They will see little or no difference in yield and will have no problem with brood in the supers.

I, too, am one of those did, then didn't, now do sometimes. Its wonderful to have those clean honey supers full of pristine capped honey. But sometimes when I would put on a new super with foundation and leave off the excluder until the bees drew out the comb, I would go in to add the excluder and -- wow -- there was brood in there already. Took me a while to get the timing right.

I do think excluders have their place in a hobby bee yard but agree that it is not necessarily intuitive how to use them. Almost got rid of mine and now, with a little experience, would not want to be without them.

You don't make it clear if it is for honey production or just use them in general. We use them for splits...lots of um. We do not use them between brood boxes and honey supers.

alpha6 said:

You don't make it clear if it is for honey production or just use them in general. We use them for splits...lots of um. We do not use them between brood boxes and honey supers.

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Yes, I meant between the brood boxes and honey supers. Honestly, I didn't realize there were other uses for them. I have lots to learn...

Great question, Tom!! I'm new and just running into this.
I have a single deep that is now booming so I put on a super and excluder thinking that was the "right" thing to do.
After a week or so, no drawn comb. I put a feeder on top to lure the girls through, and still no comb after a week.
I then read all the above - remove excluder or add brood to super. I still don't know what the most efficient way to get the girls up there is, but here is my experiment:

I removed the super and took one frame from it and placed it in the deep. BAM! One week later the frame is completely filled!! Now, I have placed that frame back in the super and re-installed the super with the excluder.

I'll let ya know in a couple of days whether that sparked activity in the super!!

Good luck!

sparks2142 said:

I removed the super and took one frame from it and placed it in the deep. BAM! One week later the frame is completely filled!! Now, I have placed that frame back in the super and re-installed the super with the excluder.

I'll let ya know in a couple of days whether that sparked activity in the super!!

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Yes, let me know how that worked out. I just placed a new super above my deep (with an excluder), and a week later nothing was happening. I may have to do what you did, put one of those frames in the deep to get them going on it, and then reinstall it into the super.

I'll be watching for your update!

Tom Fran said:

I have lots to learn...

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Join the club.

Its kinda funny. You do your research and think you know something and then at some point you realize you don't know anything yet. Then when you think you actually might know something you wonder if you really do.

Cascade Failure said:

You do your research and think you know something and then at some point you realize you don't know anything yet.

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I agree. That's one reason why I like coming to this forum. I like to hear other people's logic and methodology. I really helps me to advance quicker (I think:scratch.

To exclude or not exclude, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous nectar flows, or to cast aside all excluders so that honey may be stored above the lowly brood chamber as was intended by natures design, air go the comb being full of honey on a hot day may by it's unsupported weight collapse and drop to the floor of the hive and be useless to the workers who have toiled so long and hard to produce such bountious sweet and heady winters fuel.

Yay, leave off thine queen excluder, thine very honey excluder and manage your hive so that a honey barrier is formed above the brood which by good fortune the queen in her persuit of vacancies to fill won't bother traveling across said honey because it affords her no such wombs to lay in. And she will remain where aught she should, down in the lower depths of her chamber.

Brood below, w/ pollen above and honey stored ever higher. That is the natural order of life in the hive.

Yet when the flow is weak or it rains for weeks and she moves up I'll slip in an excluder to get her back where she belongs. Spring splits I will run as singles with an excluder(after they are working the supers) and give them the top brood box after the main flow so I keep the light honey and the bees get the dark honey in the fall or I feed them to fill the top brood box for winter stores.

sqkcrk said:

To exclude or not exclude, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous nectar flows, or to cast aside all excluders,,,

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That's some pretty good stuff!!! Is that Shakespeare?

Hey Tom! It worked. I had dropped a super frame into the deep - the girls drew comb on it. I put that frame back in the super, and now they are drawing comb on the frame adjacent to it!!
So, it took a drawn frame to "jumpstart" the super. And the excluder is still in place.
That was interesting... good luck!