What is it exactly and do I really need one?
A queen excluder is a filter that is large enough to allow a worker bee get through but too small for a queen to go through.
There are a number of reasons to have one such as if you only want workers to take stuff into certain frames and prevent the queen from going there to lay brood.
Others can chime in to any other purposes.
I've heard as many arguments for as against them. It starts a huge discussion at meetings.
If I had one of those I'd be a millionaire!
All kidding aside, you meant to write excluder. It keeps the queen confined to the brood box. She can't squeeze through the openings, whereas a worker bee can. Allowing the honey supers to be just that. I do not use them, and have no issues with the queen laying in the supers. It also hinders the bees from wanting to use the supers as well.
...Qween Extruder... No Ossifer I hadn't had a tang to dwink :wink:
I use to keep them underneath the inner cover to keep from crushing the queen. I have a bunch. The main thing I use them for now is to place "under" a super if I put a swarm in it. Keeps the queen in there. I'll remove it in about 24-36 hours.
It can be used to isolate a queen when you want to find her in a big hive. It can be used to partition a hive for raising queen cells, and it is used to keep brood out of honey supers.
Don't forget, guys, it works great under the wheel when you get your truck stuck.
I don't think my plastic one will work to well for that. I use 4WD and about 400 pounds of weight in the back. When I really get it stuck I have to use a chain and the tractors.
Quote from: Acebird on May 04, 2016, 05:22:13 PM
I don't think my plastic one will work to well for that. I use 4WD and about 400 pounds of weight in the back. When I really get it stuck I have to use a chain and the tractors.
a 4wd is designed to get you so completely stuck that you need https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Huey_family to get U out. LOL
Yeah, believe me I have been there.
Quote from: Psparr on May 04, 2016, 01:39:46 PM
If I had one of those I'd be a millionaire!
All kidding aside, you meant to write excluder. It keeps the queen confined to the brood box. She can't squeeze through the openings, whereas a worker bee can. Allowing the honey supers to be just that. I do not use them, and have no issues with the queen laying in the supers. It also hinders the bees from wanting to use the supers as well.
Can you substantiate your last sentence or is that your opinion?
Quote from: Barhopper on May 04, 2016, 09:13:40 PM
Quote from: Psparr on May 04, 2016, 01:39:46 PM
If I had one of those I'd be a millionaire!
All kidding aside, you meant to write excluder. It keeps the queen confined to the brood box. She can't squeeze through the openings, whereas a worker bee can. Allowing the honey supers to be just that. I do not use them, and have no issues with the queen laying in the supers. It also hinders the bees from wanting to use the supers as well.
Can you substantiate your last sentence or is that your opinion?
That is the debate....just opinions... sometimes with a new super of foundation it is better to leave it off until the bees start drawing it then put on. So I hear... the ones I have acquired are rotting in a pile..
You ask if you need one? I bought one last year thinking I'd need one and well, it came with most of the hive kits,so I thought I needed one, so when I pieced things together, I bought one. I haven't used it yet. The bees created a nice honey cap over the brood which she never crossed. But I can see where one could be useful at times. You can have mine. I bought the wrong size anyway. lol Got a 10 when I use all 8s. Lol
Can you substantiate your last sentence or is that your opinion?
Have heard many people with the same opinion. Also experience. My bees would rather swarm than fill the box above.
This is always an interesting one! I always hear so many people saying not to use queen excluders, ad that worker bees won't cross them etc.
In my experience with an excluder on I get beautiful supers full of pure honeycomb, with no worries about workers not wanting to go across it. When I didn't use it my queen was up in my super laying and bees were storing pollen in my honey super.
To me it makes a lot more sense to put one on, and then you have no chance of your honey super being contaminated with brood and pollen - open your lid, pull heavy frames of pure honey, and that's that. No picking and choosing which frames to leave or take.
I wish my queens got the memo about not going into the honey super
Looking at it both ways - I use an excluder - metal wire ones only as the plastic both deteriorate in about 3 years and the sharp edges damage the bees wings. Using the excluder means all the frames in the honey supers are available for extraction. I run a brood box and two honey supers and rob 9 frames every 2-3 weeks during the flow.(sometimes earlier)
On the flip side I helped a novice get started - she purchased 2 x 3 box hives from an old beek who didn't use an excluder. Both hives were chock a block full with burr comb in the lids. all we could get off was 2 frames from one and 3 from the other - every other frame had brood in them - waste of good honey space.
Quote from: PhilK on May 04, 2016, 11:48:43 PM
To me it makes a lot more sense to put one on, and then you have no chance of your honey super being contaminated with ------pollen -
Ummmmm I thought that was the desire... honey with pollen
Quote from: sc-bee on May 05, 2016, 01:23:09 AM
Quote from: PhilK on May 04, 2016, 11:48:43 PM
To me it makes a lot more sense to put one on, and then you have no chance of your honey super being contaminated with ------pollen -
Ummmmm I thought that was the desire... honey with pollen
I meant honey
frames contaminated with pollen. Of course there are pollen grains in my honey, and that's great.. but when half of my honey frame is dedicated to storing pollen because of nearby brood, that's wasted honey space to me. Pollen doesn't come out in the extractor so those pollen cells stay put.
Obviously it's a complex debate but excluders work for me so I see no reason for me to get rid of them!
I agree Phil K, brood box with 2-4 supers that are honey only.
We work on taking supers when full,( rather than taking full frames) by putting a new super under the full one with a bee escape or clearer board between to get all the bees out of the honey super.
With a queen excluder I know where the queen is. the brood box is sometimes almost full of brood at times and it is easy to assess how the queen is laying.
We do get pollen in the supers when there is heaps coming in, often the bees will put a layer of honey over the pollen and cap it.
I would expect that harvesting in the beginning of the season increases the chance of getting brood in supers. I have never experienced it because I harvest honey very late in the season. The queen has shut down or just about and we normally get a good goldenrod flow. When I first got a hive I used the excluder because it came with the kit and I thought you were suppose to use it. Up north nucs come late, after the spring flow so there is not that pressure to drive the workforce through the excluder and draw out new foundation. On a new hive the excluder is a barrier. That is a fact. Bees accept drawn used comb readily so it is not such a barrier.
Put it against the inner cover and you can harvest propolis. The plastic ones are better for propolis.
>What is it exactly
There is not such thing as a queen extruder...
> and do I really need one?
Obviously not.
But assuming you meant excluder... here is a quote from Isaac Hopkins:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesulbn.htm#excluders
"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."--Isaac Hopkins, The Australasian Bee Manual
Isaac Hopkins, The Australasian Bee Manual Published 1911 Just saying
Quote from: Acebird on May 05, 2016, 08:33:33 AMOn a new hive the excluder is a barrier. That is a fact.
Is that an established fact? Or something that beekeepers have noticed and start saying is a fact?
With my new hives, once they filled their brood box they got an excluder then a super on top... never had an issue with bees not going into the supers of foundation, so I would say it is not a fact.
Maybe it's a climatic thing, and being in a more or less always warm climate I don't experience the same issue?
Quote from: Wombat2 on May 05, 2016, 06:57:09 PMIsaac Hopkins, The Australasian Bee Manual Published 1911 Just saying
Some would say wisdom is wisdom but an opinion from 105 years ago is not going to make me throw my excluders out
Quote from: PhilK on May 05, 2016, 08:17:03 PM
Is that an established fact?
In this country I would say yes. I have heard in your country the flows are very strong. But if a newbie starting out has no drawn comb with their first hive in this country they will learn the lesson of the "honey excluder" that first year. So I am saying it is an established fact for newbies in this country. If they don't believe me than they can try it out. I am sure it is not going to work for them so maybe they can move their hive to the down under. :-)
I think everyone should move their hives down under, as long as they promise to leave their mites behind!
That's another interesting example of how local beekeeping is - so where do the bees store their honey then? Or do they swarm and leave the empty super of foundation?
You guessed it they swarm.
Extruding queens sounds easier than grafting ;-)
on new hives I use them to keep the girls from leaving for a time
>The Australasian Bee Manual Published 1911 Just saying
I haven't seen any wisdom about beekeeping that is that useful that has come along since. 99% of everything we needed to figure out was done by Francis Huber in the 18th century and Jan Dzierzon in the mid 19th Century. I really don't understand chronological snobbery...
That book was written based on Northern Hemisphere Bee management practices which is fine for general use but not specific for all of Australia - may be OK down south say Tasmania and southern Alpine regions but most of the east coast from Sydney north is a different matter. The only 3 books have been written specifically for warm climate management like we have in Australia - "My Little Bee Book"by J Carroll (1875) "An Introduction to Beekeeping" by H.Hacker (1935) and the latest "The Bee Book -Beekeeping in Australia" Peter Warhurst and Roger Goebel (2013) These last two authors are beekeepers who were also apiary officers for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries. Their book covers the special requirements of managing hives in Australia where, in contrast to cooler areas bees often continue to breed and gather honey throughout winter. Their comment on Queen Excluders is simple and short - the excluder prevents brood appearing in the honey super and ensures the Queen cannot be inadvertently be lost during inspections. - that's it no other discussion - just logic.
>That book was written based on Northern Hemisphere Bee management practices which is fine for general use but not specific for all of Australia
You mean "The Australasian Bee Manual"? I'm a bit confused.
>The only 3 books have been written specifically for warm climate management like we have in Australia
Simply not true. The Australasian Bee Manual was written for New Zealand and Australia... the original in 1881 and the last one, as far as I know, in 1911 by Isaac Hopkins, at one time the Chief Apiarist of the New Zealand government. That's why he wrote it. There were no books at the time written specifically for your climate and flows.
Quote from: Michael Bush on May 08, 2016, 07:47:28 PMSimply not true. The Australasian Bee Manual was written for New Zealand and Australia... the original in 1881 and the last one, as far as I know, in 1911 by Isaac Hopkins, at one time the Chief Apiarist of the New Zealand government. That's why he wrote it. There were no books at the time written specifically for your climate and flows.
I suppose the difficulty there is that Australia and New Zealand have pretty drastically different climates (and I assume therefore flows). Australia is so big that we have vastly different climates from state to state. Temperate regions of Australia (southern Victoria, Tasmania etc) are more similar to NZ and Northen climes, so maybe the QE wisdom fits there. Where I am it's meant to be the end of Autumn and we're getting days of 25-30*C routinely. Did an inspection yesterday and the bees have almost filled all their super frames with honey already - we extracted about a month ago!
I think where it's warmer and more consistently has resources available a QE is more needed. I have had no problems with bees filling supers, I always know my queen is in the bottom box, and I get no brood or pollen being deposited in my honey supers so I will keep using them!
Agree : I harvest 9 frames of honey per hive every 6 weeks in winter 2-3 weeks in spring. I must add I am in an excellent location with over a 1000 acres of native forest "blending" with my 5000 sqm (1.24 acres) but our hives may slow down but never stop so we need totally different management techniques than the northern hemisphere, southern regions of Australia, and definitely New Zealand.
http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/regional-geography-of-the-world-globalization-people-and-places/section_15/48519d0fc1233d50d2ce8b7febde0359.jpg (http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/regional-geography-of-the-world-globalization-people-and-places/section_15/48519d0fc1233d50d2ce8b7febde0359.jpg)
Queen excluders don't HAVE to be sheets of metal or plastic with restricting slots in them ...
Any piece of woodware which presents a comb-free distance of a couple of inches will stop the quuen from passing over, and yet still allow the bees full and easy access. I've never used such a method on a vertical hive (no need to), but on my Long Hives a truncated partition (or 'follower') board works like a charm. Exactly the same method is used on the Bienenkiste hive.
There is an example of the equivalent for a vertical hive on the Dave Cushman site - http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/excludertypes.html ("Plain Plywood") which might be worth considering ?
LJ
>I suppose the difficulty there is that Australia and New Zealand have pretty drastically different climates (and I assume therefore flows). Australia is so big that we have vastly different climates from state to state.
We have the same issue. There is a lot of difference between Minnesota and Florida, or Nebraska and California...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslocality.htm
"In my earlier beekeeping years I was often sorely puzzled at the diametrically opposite views often expressed by the different correspondents for the bee journals. In extension of that state of mind I may say that at that time I did not dream of the wonderful differences of locality in its relation to the management of bees. I saw, measured weighted, compared, and considered all things apicultural by the standard of my own home--Genesee County, Michigan. It was not until I had seen the fields of New York white with buckwheat, admired the luxuriance of sweet-clover growth in the suburbs of Chicago, followed for miles the great irrigating ditches of Colorado, where they give lift to the royal purple of the alfalfa bloom, and climbed mountains in California, pulling myself up by grasping the sagebrush, that I fully realized the great amount of apicultural meaning stored up in that one little word--locality." --W.Z. Hutchinson, Advanced Bee Culture
I wonder what beekeepers in Aussie-like US climates (Florida?) think of QEs then - are their bees happy to cross them to store honey like ours are, or unwilling like others have said in this thread?
Another factor you need to take into consideration is that the access slots in a commercial Queen Excluders are made to a standard size (but no doubt varying slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer), whereas the size of bees can vary. It would follow that larger-cell bees would experience more obstruction from a given commercial Queen Excluder than would smaller cell bees.
LJ