I attended a presentation by Ed Karle this past fall during the VSBA meeting.
Mr. Karle talked about cutting 3-4" off the ends off a queen excluder to end the " Queen excluders are honey excluder" issue.
He said the workers just figure it out and go around while the queen typically chimneys and doesnt ascend.
Anyone have any comments to this strategy. It's almost go time here!
Thanks
Why destroy an excluder? Just turn it 90 degrees and accomplish the same thing.
Yes, I have known many people that did that.
ow were the results?
90 degree rotation ? what about the gap and you get more than 3-4 " on each side right?
2 inch on each end with a 10 frame excluder and they say it works. I've never tried it.
LJ used to talk about using a thin piece of plywood, the size of the box with the corners cut off. It was the same idea. The mated queen stays in the brood area but the bees will go through the corners. He used this method for a long time.
Jim
It boggles my mind why one would cut holes in a device rendering its purpose useless. This logic is likened to poking a small nail into the side wall of the tires on the truck to make a slow leak because they hold too much air on a hot day. Then being upset that the tires are flat next weekend.
The idea may work if you are running weak colonies in double deeps. If you are running singles, good healthy hives, in warm weather; you can be quite sure that she?s going upstairs within a week after the corners have been cut out. I say this because in peak brooding period the bottom box, run as single, is wall to wall brood. A good queen going hard and constrained will lay levery cell available. She will find the corner openings herself or the bees will usher her through them.
The QE is not a standard or necessary piece of hive equipment. It is a beekeepers TOOL that has a very specific purpose. That is to enable the beekeeper to manage the broodnest location. You either want to manage the queen and where the nest is or you do not. Do not be half baked about it. There are also other methods to managing the nest. Though the QE makes it easy.
The QE has no end effect on honey yields. If the bees are not putting the nectar/honey above, it is because they do not really need the space or the setup is not encouraging to them, yet. For example a box of foundation plopped on top of the QE is not going to get much, if any, attention until the lowers are completely filled to capacity. However a box of drawn wet comb above the QE will be immediately jumped on and worked as one with the rest of the combs.
All that said, the type of QE and foundation makes a difference. Big bees from large cell foundation have a difficult time squeezing through those small poor quality plastic queen excluders. Know each piece of your equipment and ensure it is compatible with how you operate. Know the foundation size and use good quality steel QE.
Finally, in the heat of the summer and heavy flows there is benefit to a top entrance. This is as simple as offsetting the top super forward by 3/4?. The bees will appreciate it. Has nothing to do with the QE. It is about reducing the walking distance they have to go to get to the door to go get another load.
Cutting corners rarely gives sustained positive results. Usually doing so blesses you with unintended alternative results.
IMHO
Take a standard queen excluder. Turn it 90 degrees and center it. Don't cut it!
IF you are managing your bees with the single brood box hive management method, the queen exclude is required and in my experience does not impede the production of honey, at least not to any appreciable degree. If you are concerned about the excluder causing reduced honey production, I install an Imirie shim with a 3/4" to 1" entrance notch cut in it directly above the queen excluder and just under the inner cover for upper entrances for the foraging bees to have direct access to the honey supers above the queen excluder. This seems to work pretty well for me.
I have experimented and tried placing an Imirie shim above the queen excluder and in between each honey super box in the stack but this turned out to be too much and made it too easy for robber bees and other hive pests to gain access to the hive. To be honest just one Imirie shim directly under the inner cover at the top of the stack is plenty enough for an upper entrance for direct access of the returning foraging bees. Between the main lower entrance and the upper entrance, that is plenty.
For those unfamiliar with what an Imirie shim is:
http://www.michiganbees.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Imirie-Shim_20110326.pdf
https://www.mannlakeltd.com/10-frame-shim-with-entrance-unassembled
https://www.dadant.com/catalog/hive-accessories/hive-parts/b10014-super-shim-10-fr
If you are buying shims, I am partial to the Dadant super shims when I needed some in a hurry. Otherwise I had Albert Zook build me some.