# My bees won't pass through my queen excluder



## JPBee

I've been bee keeping in Ontario Canada for 4 years now with little success unfortunately. This year however through practice and learning, I've finally got my ladies working the way any bee keeper would expect. I have had supers on the hive for about 3 weeks now with the bodies about 90-95% full and was wondering if there was any way to encourage them to pass through the excluder. I had alot of swarming issues last year and am deadly terrifyed of going through this again. Any advice would be amazing as 4 years of keeping with no honey has been taxing to say the least. Don't want to spoil a year that I've actually had success. Thanks.


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## MTN-Bees

I don't use queen excluders with honey supers just for that reason. Try taking them off and let the bees get working in the supers. If you have foundation I would definitely scrap the QEs. Bees seem to see the QEs as barriers. I use them for queen rearing and splits.


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## gone2seed

MTN-Bees said:


> I don't use queen excluders with honey supers just for that reason. Try taking them off and let the bees get working in the supers. If you have foundation I would definitely scrap the QEs. Bees seem to see the QEs as barriers. I use them for queen rearing and splits.


As the previous poster said,if using foundation lose the queen excluders for now.If you have drawn comb then a light spray of sugar water will get them up there.
In rare cases the bees are too large to go through the excluder.


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## JPBee

Thanks for the quick responses. That's slightly deceiving and disappointing that A dadant sells them to you and B have my bee supply guy say to use them. May as well save me 30 bucks and not supply them to me. I'll follow up when I check in a week and let you know if I get some improvement. Also I noticed that they had a hard time squeezing through. My ladies are a bit rotund I guess.


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## burns375

Queen excluders have there place, they do work for some styles. Folks that don't want to fool with brood in the honey super. Some folks won't sell honey that came from brood comb. Its probably best to put somekind of drawn comb up there. Some folks will add an upper entrance too. I've used them with drawn supers without issue. Also I would understand what kind of flow is on in your area. Down here we are in dearth or close to it. Bees need surplus nectar to start drawing.


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## crofter

There has to be more to the issue than queen excluders. Where in Ontario? Here in Algoma District the flow was mostly over by three weeks ago when you say you put honey supers on. If you have bare foundation you have to bait the bees up with a few drawn frames or frames of brood to get them started drawing comb before you put the excluders on. Once they start working through the excluders they are little or no barrier. Giving a full upper entrance and restricting the lower one is also an incentive.

More info needed on what you feel have been your problems.


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## JPBee

I'm in king township so you're fairly north from me. However it's true that the season now for flow is also slowing down. I maybe only have a few weeks left before they're won't be much more production. I also started 1 hive from a nuke this year but I fed them until mid July. I didn't use any drawn comb up in the supers. I was thinking take the QEs out until they get started then add them in later. How would I go about using a full upper enterance. Should I just shim up the super and leave the front open? Overall my bees for the 4 years have been healthy. Only 1 has had veroa mites (reason for the nuke) but no other parasites or issues have come about. It's in a sunny sheltered spot. We have a large flower and vegetable garden withing 500 meters of the hive. I know some neighbouring farmers spray their soy and corn with insectaside. I'm not sure if that would affect their honey production or not but just something to point out. I was considering moving them closer to the garden but that means it comes closer to people's houses and animals which may be difficult. I'm also using half boxes for my supers so I won't be able to put brood frames up there. In terms of selling that would be ideal but after this long if I get 1 cup for my own consumption I would pee my pants with excitement.


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## crofter

Shimming makes an easy and effective entrance wherever you need one. You can make simple lifts or rims to add whatever height you need to temporarily raise your honey super so you can hang brood frames up there. You can also (temporarily) take a frame out of the brood box and put it up in the super and allow the bottom to hang down into the space where you removed it from below. Have you been doing actual mite counts? I have had nucs do poorly and assumed it was gospel that nucs dont have mite problems the first summer, only to discover that they were being kept on their knees by the effects of mites. Got the mites taken care of and they took off and I managed to feed them up to weight to survive the winter well. Nucs should get up to double deeps and give _some_ honey the first summer but you probably would have to feed some later if you cant depend on a fall flow. Here we can't depend on fall flow but I am 300 miles north and west of you.

Not having drawn comb in the supers sure makes it tougher. I started with wax foundation and that seems to get drawn more willingly by the bees. I am using some plastic now but it seldom gets drawn out full to the frame endbars the first season.


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## Boomhawr

That's why they also call them "honey excluders".


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## crofter

Just another tool; you have to know how to handle it! Some people beat themselves up with a hammer: stupid hammer!:lpf:


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## JPBee

Awesome. This has been both helpful and educational. If I do end up finding mites is it wise to treat them.mid summer or should I just wait till september/October when its recommended


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## crofter

Treat immediately! The next month and a half is critical for raising the healty winter bees that will be the ones getting the colony going in the spring. Most of the ones alive now will not live till spring. It is also considered to take several rounds of brood to clear the existing viral load that mites often are the vectors for. Oxalic vapor is what I would use but will take three apps. 5 or 6 days apart. There are others, some temperature sensitive, some with time restraints or slow to initiate drops etc.


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## AmericasBeekeeper

Welcome!


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## JPBee

Checked the bees last Saturday. I definitely missed the window for honey production again. F. I did a mite check and there was no signs of any at least. Thanks for everyones input. I guess I just have to keep plugging away and hope for the best. Im going to try and move them closer to the garden next spring before i open them up. Hopefully 2016 is my year.


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## Joe Mel

I think she has some problem so contact the expert.


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## JPBee

Amazing news. Checked my ladies today. Looks like the bees gods have smiled upon me and this heat wave has helped me out. Looks like I'm going to get one frame of honey in my supers. Boom goes the dynamite. It's a small amount, but a huge victory for me.


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## Michael Bush

> If I do end up finding mites ...

The only way to not find mites in your hives in North America is if you didn't look for them or you don't know what they look like yet. You WILL have Varroa mites.


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## JPBee

Michael Bush said:


> > If I do end up finding mites ...
> 
> The only way to not find mites in your hives in North America is if you didn't look for them or you don't know what they look like yet. You WILL have Varroa mites.


As I've read and figured out what to do I realizes that this is the case. I'll be treating for them with the Quick Strips as soon as the heat breaks here.


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## Michael Bush

I don't see that having mites is a reason to treat, since everyone does... that's a different question.


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## JPBee

Michael Bush said:


> I don't see that having mites is a reason to treat, since everyone does... that's a different question.


I'm not quite clear as to what your trying to tell me then. Your saying I have mites for sure but then not to treat. I've had other keepers tell me to treat annually regardless. So you can see why I'm slightly confused on what your posting about. I'm looking for answers, not more questions. I already have plenty of those as I'm clearly struggling with beekeeping.


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## frustrateddrone

Upper entrance Problem solved


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## crofter

JPBee said:


> I'm not quite clear as to what your trying to tell me then. Your saying I have mites for sure but then not to treat. I've had other keepers tell me to treat annually regardless. So you can see why I'm slightly confused on what your posting about. I'm looking for answers, not more questions. I already have plenty of those as I'm clearly struggling with beekeeping.


http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/food/inspection/bees/varroa-biology.htm Here is a good rundown on what the Ministry of Agriculture thinks about the varroa mite and whether you should treat or not.


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## Michael Bush

>I'm not quite clear as to what your trying to tell me then. Your saying I have mites for sure but then not to treat.

I'm a treatment free beekeeper. If I treated every time I had mites I would never stop treating and I certainly wouldn't be a treatment free beekeeper.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm#notreatments

You might consider what your philosophy of life is and apply it to beekeeping.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesphilosophy.htm


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