Queen Excluder - which way up?

[andynorton]

This is probably a very stupid question, but can't seem to find the answer to it anywhere.
I'm using a wooden framed wire queen excluder on a National hive. The excluder has bee space on one side. When I initially fitted it, I presumed the bee space should be on the bottom..... but the bees are building brace comb between the brood frames and the queen excluder. I was scraping off dozens of larva from the top of the brood frames when I inspected the hive today.
Did I fit it the wrong way up?

 

[Poly Hive]

Maybe not. It might be just badly made. I have seen it before.

PH

 

[jezd]

This is probably a very stupid question, but can't seem to find the answer to it anywhere.
I'm using a wooden framed wire queen excluder on a National hive. The excluder has bee space on one side. When I initially fitted it, I presumed the bee space should be on the bottom..... but the bees are building brace comb between the brood frames and the queen excluder. I was scraping off dozens of larva from the top of the brood frames when I inspected the hive today.
Did I fit it the wrong way up?

Boxes with b'space at the bottom often also have a few mm extra space even on the top, I have same issues on kit - I am stopping worrying about small amount of brace comb now.

 

[victor meldrew]

All things being equal, the framed qx in a national hive should be fitted bee space down ,this equates with one bee space above frame tops and one bee space above qx/ below bottom of super frame, fitting the other way up results in a double bee space below the super frames . Having said that, sometimes the bees seem not to recognise the qx and see the the gap as still two bee spaces and build brace comb, this is nowt to worry about a bee inspector I know maintains that it's a waste of time cleaning off the brace comb ,as "they'll only build it back up again" .

John Wilkinson

 

[Busy Bee]

I use steel slotted QX no problems with either bee space or brace comb but I will say, I've had a framed QX and I removed as I got brace all the time and now I don't.

Busy Bee

 

[andynorton]

Thanks - glad to know I had it the right way up! We used zinc slotted excluders on the course I went on, so wasn't expecting as much brace comb as I have been getting on my own hives.