# Queen excluder hole diameter for European bees



## Remichi (Apr 6, 2013)

Hi guys,

I harvested my first honey here in Kenya! I did notice that many of the combs had honey at the top and brood at the bottom. So I decided that for my next top bar hive build I need a proper queen excluder. 

The next top bar hive I'll build will be in France at my parents' place, so different size bees. *What is the best diameter of holes for a queen excluder in Europe?* I was planning to drill many holes into a piece of metal and hope not to lose too much pollen. I read #5 mesh is best, but wondering what the inside measurements of 1 mesh hole are.

The top bar width should be 35mm in Europe right? (35mm for brood and 38mm for honey comb I understood)

Thanks. See some pics of me harvesting at: www.bit.ly/beekeepingkenya


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## cblakely (Sep 6, 2013)

That sounds like too much work to me. Can you buy a lang style queen excluder and adjust/cut it to fit your top bar? You can test the idea with a cheep plastic one and go more deluxe later, if you like.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

According to this site:

http://catalog.darbywiremesh.com/viewitems/mesh-by-application/galvanized-hardware-cloth
the opening in #5 hardware cloth is 0.177 inches.

Of course, the holes in hardware cloth are square holes. Most drills make round holes, so the distance diagonally in a square hole is difficult to compare to a round hole.

.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Wikipedia info about queen excluders.

Here is a link to more information about queen excluders.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Isn't the traditional way to harvest from a Top Bar Hive to take the combs that are only honey? Therreby avoiding the need of an excluder?


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

I agree with mark, the combs Remichi describes have the honey and pollen to feed the brood that are on that comb, if there are not other combs that are honey only, then there is not excess stores to harvest. Placing an excluder in the hive will only disrupt the bee's natural process.


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## Remichi (Apr 6, 2013)

I agree on a TBH a queen excluder is not wanted, but having honey and brood mixed is not ideal. Maybe it's mixed because it's the hives first year...


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

You will have honey and brood on combs in a TBH because that is how bees do what they do. Which is also why Langstroth equipment is so popular. You can take honey off of the top of a Langstroth style hive and leave the brood where bees naturally put it. Below the honey.

If you were to examine a vertical cavity hive, say in a tree or the wall of a building, you would see honey occupying the comb closest to the top of the cavity. A band of pollen below that and then comb filled w/ brood below. In a top bar hive there is not much room above the brood for there to be a lot of comb occupied by honey.

That being said, I believe that if you had had a strong nectar flow and great production of honey, you would have had some combs of honey w/out any or much brood in them also.


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## plcnut (Mar 8, 2013)

This is our first year with KTBH's. All the brood comb has honey at the top, and the brood below, pollen is usually somewhere around the edge. When you reach the end of the brood nest, it is an abrupt change to honey storage comb. There is a very obvious change in the comb thickness and color. There would be no benefit in having a QE in one of our hives (unless for multiple queens, etc).


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

I agree to a point on what sqkcrk said, but if you look at a feral hive in a space above a roof (horizontal instead of vertical) you will see the stores in the back of the hive, and it the hive is large enough it will have significant honey stores.


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## Colleen O. (Jun 5, 2012)

Last year on my first year KTBHs all the combs had the honey on top, band of pollen, then brood. They only built out maybe 10 combs in each. (We had a drought and heatwave.) I didn't harvest anything. This year they got to start on comb and really took off. This year they had the brood combs as described but I also saw the dramatic change to all honey combs like others have mentioned. Most of mine also made another change in that the first comb or two at the entrance were all pollen. At close to the end of the season, just before the fall flow, I saw them backfill all the drone comb with honey. At the end of the season they backfilled a lot of the brood nest combs with honey too, leaving just a little area for brood.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

A good description of a healthy TBH colony's normal progression. Sometimes I have a problem communicating, thanks for your post Colleen.


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