Queen Excluders or Queen Containers?

[the naked beekeeper]

Who doesn't use QXs and what are your reasons?

I am thinking of going double broods next year on my prolific colonies and ditching the QX.

 

[Chris B]

I tried it once in an apiary but for me more negatives than positives with a Langstroth set-up. The bees were prolific with a capital "P". All of them used a minimum of 14 packed brood frames. On one I counted 24 frames of sealed brood a week after swarming. Things looked really good until they got swarmy on me but all their resources were going into bee production not honey production. I struggled to manage the swarming and finding queens in huge colonies is always a challenge.
The net result was an increase in colonies, very little honey, and quite labour intensive. Having said that, if you're after increase and have time to be more proactive than I was it could be successful.

 

[Bad Boy Bee]

I agree with Chris - I also observed on my double brood colonies the Queen wholly abandoning the lower brood box and moving into the supers to breed.

 

[RoofTops]

The queen is likely to use a third box at some point of the season, which means you will have brood in a super. This is less of a problem if you are using the same size frames throughout the hive as you can use these frames which had had brood elsewhere.

 

[Finman]

I agree with Chris - I also observed on my double brood colonies the Queen wholly abandoning the lower brood box and moving into the supers to breed.

reason is that the lowest box is too cold. When I open the whole entrance (solid bottom), bees take into brood use the third box. I let them do it because there is a main flow and they may do in main flow what they can. After main flow bees lift the nectar upwards and cap the honey.

The honey yield press brood area downwards in late summer. I reduce the entrance and the whole hive tover and the brood start to fill the lowest box.

Lowest box will serve as pollen store and nectar store during best season.

 

[Finman]

Who doesn't use QXs and what are your reasons?
.

i have nursed bees 49 years and do not use excluder. I want maximum size colonies and I want maximum nectar flow into hives when blooming is suitable to that.

It takes too time to handle big hives. Chris has 300 and it needs some rapid syste. I have about 20 hives.

But one thing too. It is not easy to get profilic queens which can lay two brood box. It needs continuous breeding and selecting.

 

[Finman]

I agree with Chris - I also observed on my double brood colonies the Queen wholly abandoning the lower brood box and moving into the supers to breed.

reason is that the lowest box is too cold. When I open the whole entrance (solid bottom), bees take into brood use the third box. I let them do it because there is a main flow and they may do in main flow what they can. After main flow bees lift the nectar upwards and cap the honey.

The honey yield press brood area downwards in late summer. I reduce the entrance and the whole hive tover and the brood start to fill the lowest box.

Lowest box will serve as pollen store and nectar store during best season.

 

[Finman]

.
In late summer when yield is near end, I take honey boxes to extract and I move all capped honey frames up, brood frames down and nectar in the middle. Hives do not swarm any more. I take some supers off and do not return them.

Bees rearrange the brood space and move honey up. The main thing is that colony makes maximum brood amount for winter. Honey yield is in and I cannot do nothing to it.

I have tried to use excluder in late summer but I made mistakes often. If I valuate wrong the bee colony, the box under excluder is too cold, I get only half of the brood amount what I expected.

In my pastures flowers do not give yield in August any more. Hives rear however winter bees, they eate huge pollen stores and honey too. Normally they eate uncapped honey during August and I need not worry about wet honey.

When I move the hives to home yard for winter, I take capped honey frames from brood space and arrange pollen frames and brood frames for feeding. Then in home yard rapid filling with syrup.

 

[Hombre]

Thank you Finman, that was a very graphic account of your manipulation and as such it was very insightful.

Food for thought indeed.

 

[Andy Duff]

Who doesn't use QXs and what are your reasons?

I am thinking of going double broods next year on my prolific colonies and ditching the QX.

I see from your profile that you are on nationals, why go straight to double brood?

I tried single deep brood,brood and a half, and double brood in deep boxes.
My conclusion is to convert to 14x12 brood as it is the most practical solution, using both 3 5/8 ekes and converted deeps.

My advice, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Try a few combinations of set up, with and without QX's and see which best suits your needs over a couple of years.

Angus

 

[Finman]

.
There are different styles to use excluder:

1) some use all the summer

2) some lift all brood and food frames over QE during swarming period

3) some use QE only in late summer when prepare to take the last yield from the hive.

4) some close the queen in topmost box the queen to limit brooding. In brison the queen cannot leave with swarm.

5) I think that many use QE without any practical idea why they use it.

It depends on the size of colony too, does it have afford to split the hive with QE.
When you put a second box over the brood box, it is hard job to heat empty box when brood heat rises there.

As you know, the queen like to rise up to lay because it is a warm place. When I heat the bottom with terrarium heater, often queen comes to lay near bottom.

 

[DanBee]

Who doesn't use QXs and what are your reasons?

I am thinking of going double broods next year on my prolific colonies and ditching the QX.

Double and triple Commercial broods, without queen excluders. Been running that way since the 1980's when we saw a German beekeeper running such a system.

Reasons? Complements a multi-brood box setup, works best with single-depth boxes (but Commercial deeps are dangerously heavy when full of honey, 80lb and more measured in ours). One super of honey effectively contains all but the most cramped of queens in the brood space below.

Generally beekeepers in this country give far too little brood space, e.g. the mention above of moving to a single 14x12 to "give space"... which to me is laughably cramped, since I run my colonies on twice or three times that comb area. I know 14x12 is seen as the holy grail by many here...

I agree with Chris that finding the queen can be tricky with 33 frames of brood nest, but there are ways and means and clues to be had. Swarm control was in fact easier because of the multi-broods used hand-in-hand with no queen excluders; our crown boards are split boards so we have all the equipment necessary for an artificial swarm.

Queen excluders are used as a tool, where we need to partition colonies, e.g. when queen raising over a queenright colony.

BTW, framed queen excluders are worth the price/effort premium of the unframed floppy plastic ones. Bee space shouldn't be ignored

 

[jakethedog]

DanBee, a nice post, and as for...

our crown boards are split boards so we have all the equipment necessary for an artificial swarm.

another one to be jotted down in the 'good idea' notebook.

 

[Finman]

Double and triple Commercial broods....

I agree with Chris that finding the queen can be tricky with 33 frames of brood nest, but there are ways and means and clues to be had.

- - To find a queen is easy. When I have 3 brood boxes, lowest have only pollen, nectar and evil old- foragers

- in swarm control I look only uppermost brood box. The queen cells are in lower
frame stick. They are 10- 15 pieces. When I see it, it is time to do false swarm.