question about queen excluders.

[RangerBrad]

Hey gang, well my 2 hives were a year old this year and this was my first year to harvest honey. When the first spring flowers arrived I put on my queen excluders and supers and extracted on june the 2nd. one hive took to the excluders real well(filled 2 supers in record time) but the other was reluctant only filled 7 frames of one super all season. I was told by the gentelman that did the extracting to take my frames back put them on the hives without the excluders (the queens wouldn't cross the honey barrier) and I'd make another harvest in sept. but, at the end of June was checking on their progress and found that they had moved up into the supers and were laying eggs, so I just pulled off the supers and put them up for the year. Whats the deal do they normally cross the honey barrier or what? Though I hate to slow them down with excluders I also don't want half the frames to be used for brood. What are yal's thoughts on this subject. Thank's, Brad

[fish_stix]

Will they cross a honey barrier? Sometimes! Just opened a hive last week with double deep brood chambers and 3 filled supers and 1 partially filled. Guess where the queen chose to lay? Top super of course. We use excluders during a flow and the bees get used to them. What else can they do; stop working? Helps to give them an entrance above the excluder.  :-D

[bassman1977]

If the comb isn't drawn out, then excluders can be a pain.  I did not use excluders for two years and had the problem you are experiencing even with drawn comb and in the middle of a flow.  I did not like that.  Put the excluders back on, allowed a small opening between the top of the excluder and bottom super, no problems what so ever and they fill them up just fine.

[Kathyp]

there are tricks to using them successfully.  you should have drawn comb in the supers before putting on the excluder.  if you don't, they very often will not bother with them. an upper entrance can be helpful, but it needs to be small enough so that your honey is not robbed out.

if you are not going to use them, and a lot of us don't, wait until there is honey over the brood in your brood boxes.  once there is a good band of honey over the brood, it is less likely that the queen will cross.  also make sure that she has plenty of room to lay in the brood boxes.  i'm guessing that the big mistake that most people make is adding the supers to early.  when you do that, they just treat them like an expanded brood area and she'll lay in them for sure.

i have used them and not used them.  i find not using them easier just because i hate messing with extra stuff.  i don't get brood in my honey supers but who knows.... there's always next year   :-D

[AllenF]

I bet your brood boxes were honey bound.

[Scadsobees]

Unfortunately it is seldom mentioned in the literature that you actually need to read the rules about where to lay eggs over and over loudly to the queen before it will start to sink in and only then will she follow them.  And you need to do this for every new queen.  I'll tell you what...my voice was sure hoarse after this last swarming season!! :roll:

The honey barrier is a very loose rule...as in "as a rule, the queen won't cross the barrier".

But that being said...it isn't a big deal to have some brood in the supers.  If I don't want the queen up there and theres some brood, you can at that point make sure she's below and then put the QE on, and they'll stay up there to care for that brood, and then when it hatches out they'll fill it in with honey.

If you are going foundationless, it is likely they draw the comb out as drone comb, and the queen will cross 3 supers of capped honey for the opportunity to lay drone comb up above, all rules are off then.

[Michael Bush]

When they are totally lacking in drone comb in the brood nest the bees will build drone comb anywhere that there is soft wax and not capped honey and the queen will cross anything to get there and lay, even three supers of honey...

[tecumseh]

RangerBrad writes:
Whats the deal do they normally cross the honey barrier or what?

tecumseh:
normally no.  you can however drive the queen right to the top of the box by administering a lot of smoke at the front door.