Does anybody NOT use a Queen Excluder

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hallshoney

I find it very surprising that a 'bee farmer' doesn't use QEs

1500 hives, how does he harvest his honey crop and be sure he's left the Q behind?

I ALWAYS use a QE

richard

he will also tell you he does no swarm prevention if he finds Q cells he leaves them alone. some of his bees will make full Q cell all season and not swarm !
 
We have a BKA member with a split nest right now: brood at the bottom and brood above the supers in the roof!! Two queens possible s'ppose?

In the immortal words of Gregory House MD "Everybody lies" with that in mind.

Ask several questions about QE then refer to:-

Franciscan friar William of Ockham - He was one clever fellow. ;)
 
i have tried this out this year and have to say i have been very happy with the results.
most of my hives got HUGE im talking over 20 frames of brood here.
the lifting is a serious issue as i have sometimes found myself having to lift full broodboxes of honey.
And i would advise combining the no qe with one size box to make life easier.
 
I understand the reasoning behind using more than one brood box to give more space and not using a queen excluder, and also that the brood is generally kept together so there is not a problem with brood in supers but presumably it makes hunting for queen cells more difficult? I'm interested in giving it a go but I have a few concerns about the possibility of squashing the queen when putting two brood boxes back together after an inspection or when standing the top one on a roof to look at the bottom one. With one brood box and an excluder you know where she is but I'm not convinced it gives the bees enough room. Any thoughts?
 
i find there is a bee space between the broodboxes anyway so its only bees on the edge of the boxes who are in harms way and if you smoke while reasembaling they seem to skiddadle most of the time.
I aint killed a queen yet between boxes but i have killed 2 between the sidebars of frames and the hive wall. (usualy on first frame lifted and died because i rolled her on the way up)

Ive heard of a good few being flattened by flat crownboards and often being diced by having a queen excluder thrown on the tops of brood frames as she goes for an amble across them.
Even a weird one of being caught between a queenexcluder and crownboard she survived that one tho.
 

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