So I wish to have as many opinions as I can get to try to decide on whether or not to use queen excluders during the honey flow. I would like to know if it effects the amount of honey the bees will take up to the supers. All advice is appreciated
To Exclude or not to Exclude???????
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Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
I use excluders and got four gallons out of one hive last year (my other hive was too new to produce). I could have gotten eight, but had to pull the supers off for six weeks when I medicated in the late summer. As it was, both supers were 70-80% full when I closed up for the winter. So my experience leads me to believe that excluders don't affect the amount of honey put in the supers.
I use excluders and got four gallons out of one hive last year (my other hive was too new to produce). I could have gotten eight, but had to pull the supers off for six weeks when I medicated in the late summer. As it was, both supers were 70-80% full when I closed up for the winter. So my experience leads me to believe that excluders don't affect the amount of honey put in the supers.
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Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
If you saw yds of 40 hives and more where each hive was a deep and a medium w/ an excluder and 8 or more mediums of honey above the excluder, would you think that excluders are a bad idea or a good idea?
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Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
When I first got it into beekeeping I inherited a couple of hives from my sister who got tired of doing bees and she used excluders all the time. Well the the first season one of the hive was strong enough to add a super on one of your flows and after about a week I open it up to see what's going on and only a few bees were up in the super. So I moved the box off to see what was going on and there were tons of bees pressed against the excluder but non would pass. So I thought maybe they were not ready to move up yet. Waited another half week and looked. Same thing so I moved the excluder and in short time they were in the super. They have that thing filled within the following week. So I haven't used them since. Also my sister used to complain about her hives swarming all the time. I have had her hives for three years and they haven't swarmed yet.
When I first got it into beekeeping I inherited a couple of hives from my sister who got tired of doing bees and she used excluders all the time. Well the the first season one of the hive was strong enough to add a super on one of your flows and after about a week I open it up to see what's going on and only a few bees were up in the super. So I moved the box off to see what was going on and there were tons of bees pressed against the excluder but non would pass. So I thought maybe they were not ready to move up yet. Waited another half week and looked. Same thing so I moved the excluder and in short time they were in the super. They have that thing filled within the following week. So I haven't used them since. Also my sister used to complain about her hives swarming all the time. I have had her hives for three years and they haven't swarmed yet.
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Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
Honesty I didn't have one other than that my sister had it on there when I transported the hive from her place.
Honesty I didn't have one other than that my sister had it on there when I transported the hive from her place.
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Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
Maybe there is something wrong w/ that excluder and the spaces are too tight to allow passage, if no bees can pass thru it.
Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
Isaac Hopkins was a commercial beekeeper who later became the State Apiarist of New Zealand and he was quite eloquent on the matter. Here's what he had to say in The Australasian Bee Manual:
“Queen Excluders... are very useful in queen rearing, and in uniting colonies; but for the purpose they are generally used, viz., for confining the queen to the lower hive through the honey season, I have no hesitation in condemning them. As I have gone into this question fully on a previous occasion, I will quote my remarks:—
“The most important point to observe during the honey season in working to secure a maximum crop of honey is to keep down swarming, and the main factors to this end, as I have previously stated, are ample ventilation of the hives, and adequate working-room for the bees. When either or both these conditions are absent, swarming is bound to take place. The free ventilation of a hive containing a strong colony is not so easily secured in the height of the honey season, even under the best conditions, that we can afford to take liberties with it; and when the ventilating—space between the lower and upper boxes is more than half cut off by a queen-excluder, the interior becomes almost unbearable on hot days. The results under such circumstances are that a very large force of bees that should be out working are employed fanning-, both inside and out, and often a considerable part of the colony will be hanging outside the hive in enforced idleness until it is ready to swarm.
"Another evil caused by queen-excluders, and tending to the same end—swarming—is that during a brisk honey-flow the bees will not readily travel through them to deposit their loads of surplus honey in the supers, but do store large quantities in the breeding-combs, and thus block the breeding-space. This is bad enough at any time, but the evil is accentuated when it occurs in the latter part of the season. A good queen gets the credit of laying from two to three thousand eggs per day: supposing she is blocked for a few days, and loses the opportunity of laying, say, from fifteen hundred to two thousand eggs each day, the colony would quickly dwindle down, especially as the average life of the bee in the honey season is only about six weeks.
"For my part I care not where the queen lays—the more bees the more honey. If she lays in some of the super combs it can be readily rectified now and again by putting the brood below, and side combs of honey from the lower box above; some of the emerging brood also may be placed at the side of the upper box to give plenty of room below. I have seen excluders on in the latter part of the season, the queens idle for want of room, and very little brood in the hives, just at a time when it is of very great importance that there should be plenty of young bees emerging.”
That very eloquently says what I think...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesulbn.htm
Isaac Hopkins was a commercial beekeeper who later became the State Apiarist of New Zealand and he was quite eloquent on the matter. Here's what he had to say in The Australasian Bee Manual:
“Queen Excluders... are very useful in queen rearing, and in uniting colonies; but for the purpose they are generally used, viz., for confining the queen to the lower hive through the honey season, I have no hesitation in condemning them. As I have gone into this question fully on a previous occasion, I will quote my remarks:—
“The most important point to observe during the honey season in working to secure a maximum crop of honey is to keep down swarming, and the main factors to this end, as I have previously stated, are ample ventilation of the hives, and adequate working-room for the bees. When either or both these conditions are absent, swarming is bound to take place. The free ventilation of a hive containing a strong colony is not so easily secured in the height of the honey season, even under the best conditions, that we can afford to take liberties with it; and when the ventilating—space between the lower and upper boxes is more than half cut off by a queen-excluder, the interior becomes almost unbearable on hot days. The results under such circumstances are that a very large force of bees that should be out working are employed fanning-, both inside and out, and often a considerable part of the colony will be hanging outside the hive in enforced idleness until it is ready to swarm.
"Another evil caused by queen-excluders, and tending to the same end—swarming—is that during a brisk honey-flow the bees will not readily travel through them to deposit their loads of surplus honey in the supers, but do store large quantities in the breeding-combs, and thus block the breeding-space. This is bad enough at any time, but the evil is accentuated when it occurs in the latter part of the season. A good queen gets the credit of laying from two to three thousand eggs per day: supposing she is blocked for a few days, and loses the opportunity of laying, say, from fifteen hundred to two thousand eggs each day, the colony would quickly dwindle down, especially as the average life of the bee in the honey season is only about six weeks.
"For my part I care not where the queen lays—the more bees the more honey. If she lays in some of the super combs it can be readily rectified now and again by putting the brood below, and side combs of honey from the lower box above; some of the emerging brood also may be placed at the side of the upper box to give plenty of room below. I have seen excluders on in the latter part of the season, the queens idle for want of room, and very little brood in the hives, just at a time when it is of very great importance that there should be plenty of young bees emerging.”
That very eloquently says what I think...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesulbn.htm
Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
Some people do well with them, some don't. I personally don't see the need for them. I find establishing the broodnest early spring by moving honey/nectar frames up establishes a nice barrier that keeps the queen down. Some bees just seem better at moving nectar up out of the broodnest also when laying is restricted rather than backfilling.
Some people do well with them, some don't. I personally don't see the need for them. I find establishing the broodnest early spring by moving honey/nectar frames up establishes a nice barrier that keeps the queen down. Some bees just seem better at moving nectar up out of the broodnest also when laying is restricted rather than backfilling.
Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
Roland's response in post 10 pretty much sums up my belief.
What that says to me is we have yet another person blaming the tool. I use them and no swarming issues. My honey yield averages far exceed state averages.
Roland's response in post 10 pretty much sums up my belief.
Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
>What that says to me is we have yet another person blaming the tool.
Yea, too bad Isaac Hopkins spend his whole life as a commercial beekeeper and never learned how to do it right...
>What that says to me is we have yet another person blaming the tool.
Yea, too bad Isaac Hopkins spend his whole life as a commercial beekeeper and never learned how to do it right...
Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
I have never used one. It doesn't make sense to me to keep the queen away from sections of the hive. I pull honey from the top that is capped and I have never seen brood in the top box if the box below it has honey. Is it luck, I don't know?
I have never used one. It doesn't make sense to me to keep the queen away from sections of the hive. I pull honey from the top that is capped and I have never seen brood in the top box if the box below it has honey. Is it luck, I don't know?
Re: To Exclude or not to Excludw???????
Yea, that's too bad. I'm sure there are other famous historical names that you could quote who never mastered the use of them also. There are lots and lots of people currently who have figured out how to use them correctly, thankfully.
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