# Swarm control queen includer??



## blkcloud (May 25, 2005)

Would the bees go nuts if a queen includer was installed and they decided it was time to swarm?? thanks!


----------



## JoeMcc (May 15, 2007)

blkcloud said:


> Would the bees go nuts if a queen includer was installed and they decided it was time to swarm?? thanks!


Ive been told once they get the urge to swarm you cant stop them.... If the queen cant fly they will leave with the first virgin queen to hatch. I dunno how true it is but I would like to know.

JoeMcc


----------



## Focus on Bees (Mar 6, 2006)

I would like to also add that I believe a virgin queen will be small enough to get through the excluder, when they are ready to swarm.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

A well-mated queen can fit through a QE. I've seen 3 year old queens laying above a QE in the peak of the flow. I've heard that the hive will not feed the queen much prior to swarming, if true, then a slimmed down queen should have little trouble getting past the QE.


----------



## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

AstroBee said:


> A well-mated queen can fit through a QE. I've seen 3 year old queens laying above a QE in the peak of the flow. I've heard that the hive will not feed the queen much prior to swarming, if true, then a slimmed down queen should have little trouble getting past the QE.


It is the size of the queens thorax that prohibits her from going through the excluder, not the abdomen. When the queen is slimmed down the size of her abdomen decreases, not the thorax.


----------



## CSbees (Aug 7, 2007)

Don't even use HONEY EXCLUDERS. Queen excluders cause the bees to become pollen and honey bound meaning that they pack the area where the brood nest should be with honey and pollen. They feel cramped and will swarm EVERY TIME.


----------



## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

I believe he is talking about one of these.

http://208.69.121.208/forums/showthread.php?t=214152&highlight=yard+sale


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

CSbees said:


> Don't even use HONEY EXCLUDERS. Queen excluders cause the bees to become pollen and honey bound meaning that they pack the area where the brood nest should be with honey and pollen. They feel cramped and will swarm EVERY TIME.


Wow, stated with such authority it must be right, right?? You could probably also make the statement that track shoes cause athletes foot, because if I stop wearing them I'll not get it, right? The fact is that if you don't use the device correctly it will not give you the intended results. If you simply slap a QE over a single or double deep in March throw a bunch of super at the hive and walk away, then your odds of a swarm are pretty high. However, if instead you make sure to give the bees an upper entrance (critical) and keep a watchful eye to insure that the broodnest isn't getting too congested, then you'll likely reap the intended benefits of the QE without negatively impacting your honey production. For an interesting article on QE's and the "honey excluder" myth, see: 

http://www.beesource.com/pov/hayes/abjaug85.htm


----------



## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

I didn't use queen excluders when I started beekeeping, but now I use them on every colony and prefer them. I hate to extract darkened comb with cocoons in them and I also hate to have to pick through the comb to separate combs with brood and comb with honey. I also like to know where my queen is (under the excluder) so my inspections are a lot easier. The amount of time I save during inspections, harvesting, and extracting was well worth the small investment I into my excluders. My bees still make as much honey now as they did when I did not use the excluders.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

WVbeekeeper said:


> It is the size of the queens thorax that prohibits her from going through the excluder, not the abdomen. When the queen is slimmed down the size of her abdomen decreases, not the thorax.




I learned something new today. I really didn't know that, in fact I never noticed a big difference in thorax size between a queen and a workers. Perhaps I need those reading glasses after all. 

So, then is it true that the queens thorax increases with age, or at least within the first few days??? I know that young nurse bees look smaller, but I've always assumed that it was abdomen size and not necessarily thorax size that was changing as they aged. 

I guess I've been lucky to have had several narrow shouldered queens in the past.


----------



## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

> So, then is it true that the queens thorax increases with age, or at least within the first few days???

Young bees continue to develop for the first two weeks of their life. I would think that the queen would also develop for two weeks after emerging.

> I guess I've been lucky to have had several narrow shouldered queens in the past. 

Lucky because they got above the excluder? I have heard that a queen can get through the excluder if she really wants to badly enough. The only ones I've had above the excluder are the ones that I accidentally put there. I'm always sure to never stack the upper deep from the brood chamber on the supers during inspections anymore. I've also had to order excluders during the season and put them on after having a super or two on the colony. Never put an excluder between the supers and brood chamber without being 100% sure as to where the queen is. I've made too mistakes to list. I'm going into my 11th year and I'm sure I'll be making some more mistakes this year.


----------



## NW IN Beekeeper (Jun 29, 2005)

[Queen excluders cause the bees to become pollen and honey bound meaning that they pack the area where the brood nest should be with honey and pollen. ]

This sounds more like a frame/super management problem than a queen excluder problem. 

Swarm instincts are controlled in part by pheromones. 
A crowded brood nest concentrates these pheromones.
Keeping an open brood nest and/or honey supers relieves this. 
As does an using an upper entrance.

If your bees are becoming bound by pollen and honey in the brood nest it means there is insufficent overhead storage or too small a brood nest area. I would re-evaluate your supering procedures and align them to time with your flows. There is evidently something awry if this is the result you are regularly getting.


----------



## CSbees (Aug 7, 2007)

A worker bee loaded down with nectar is in fact much fatter than a queen and they too will not be able to get through the excluder unless they deposit some in the brood area. For naturalist beekeepers, letting bees expand their broodnest naturally is better than confining them. When I cut the bees out of the house there were no queen excluders.


----------



## carbide (Nov 21, 2004)

CSbees said:


> A worker bee loaded down with nectar is in fact much fatter than a queen and they too will not be able to get through the excluder unless they deposit some in the brood area.


Where did you get this tidbit of information? I don't recall ever having read this anywhere.


----------



## carbide (Nov 21, 2004)

WVbeekeeper said:


> I've made too mistakes to list. I'm going into my 11th year and I'm sure I'll be making some more mistakes this year.


Are they the same mistakes over and over again? If so, it's time you started making some new ones. Making the same mistakes year after year is just too darn boring for me. I try to make at least one new mistake every year in order to keep things interesting.


----------



## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

> Queen excluders cause the bees to become pollen and honey bound meaning that they pack the area where the brood nest should be with honey and pollen.


The above statement sounds like someone is stuck on the principle of the traditional "one and only - bottom entrance". This season I am using bottom boards that are screened with #7 or #8 galvanized hardware cloth, beneath a slatted rack -- these SBBs are not entrances. All of my entrances are upper entrances for better ventilation and to help baffle adult bee predators.

My first upper entrances are 5/16" to 3/8" deep rims that extend about 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" beyond the hive and have a landing area/floor of #8 wire cloth or wood. I added this "floor" area, after seeing how many bees returning from the field would suddenly drop to the ground in front of the hive, take a rest, then continue to the entrance. In my minds eye, I could see that once the toads come out for the season, these resting bees would then, never make it home. Last year the majority of the hives in my home yard (about fifteen full-size colonies in multiple, 8-frame, medium supers) still had traditional SBBs in combination with bottom entrances, even though these were elevated eight inches on concrete blocks, more than 150 large desert toads (see: Colorado River Toads), eating bees almost 24/7, had a serious and negative impact on the populations of the hives that were vulnerable (apparently skunks are not the only creatures that find honeybees delicious). In conjunction with these rim upper entrances, I plan to insert excluders above these entrances and to provide additional upper entrances by sliding the covers back from the top honey supers. Hopefully the foragers will learn which entrance to use depending on what their main foraging focus.

Trying to make a few new mistakes.


----------



## BGhoney (Sep 26, 2007)

< Swarm every time >
I have run QE in 5 hives for 3 years only had 1 swarm ( that I saw )

I'm going to try turning my excluder sideways this years on a few hives. I've heard the queen doesnt head out to the outer frames , they will be full of honey. The Idea is the workers can run around the 1 inch or so on each side that is open. Just want to run a test and see if I get any brood up in my super. I run ten frame hives, but I guess an 8 frame excluder would turn with the same space left over... 

Anyone done that , and did it work 

It would be the edge of all frames not the 2 outside frames.


----------



## blkcloud (May 25, 2005)

My first upper entrances are 5/16" to 3/8" deep rims that extend about 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" beyond the hive and have a landing area/floor of #8 wire cloth or wood.

have you got a picture of this i can see??


----------



## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

blkcloud said:


> My first upper entrances are 5/16" to 3/8" deep rims that extend about 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" beyond the hive and have a landing area/floor of #8 wire cloth or wood.
> 
> have you got a picture of this i can see??


I'll take some pics in the morning and put a link to them here.

Here is a link to a few photos of my rim style upper entrances: Rim Style Upper Entrances


----------



## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

{"Don't even use HONEY EXCLUDERS. Queen excluders cause the bees to become pollen and honey bound meaning that they pack the area where the brood nest should be with honey and pollen. They feel cramped and will swarm EVERY TIME."}

I have to agree with astro-bee, this is an overstatement that relates more to mis-mangement in the use of queen excluders. We used to run excluder free, now we run singles and run excluders on every hive. We do this because we 1) want to know where the queen is 2) Keep brood out of our honey supers 3) Like any tool if used properly works well.

It's about proper managment and the use of a tool in beekeeping.


----------



## CSbees (Aug 7, 2007)

When you have very ambitious queens like I have, a single deep is not nearly enough. This line of queens from the original "mother queen" needs at least a deep and two supers just for brood rearing. The more brood that is raised is as much what improves honey crop as the not having to pass between the wires. One of my queens here in East Tennessee laid a full round of drones a month ago. I will be beginning to raise some queens for myself in about a week.


----------



## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Joseph Clemens said:


> I'll take some pics in the morning and put a link to them here.
> 
> Here is a link to a few photos of my rim style upper entrances: Rim Style Upper Entrances


Here is the link I promised -- instead of photographs (hard to get clear photos while equipment is in use). I used SketchUp to draw out some plans.

SBB_Slatted Rack Combo for 8-frame


----------

