# Home made queen excluder



## jeremynj (Feb 17, 2011)

Most excluders have a space about .17 inches / 4.5 mm / little under 3/8s inch.

This would make 1/4 inch hardware cloth too small and 1/2 too large.

Does anyone know of a metal screen that I can buy or will one of these size screens work anyway ?

I could drill a bunch of holes in a piece of plywood, in that case, what size would work the best ?


Excluders are only a few dollars from the stores but I like to build whatever I can.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

No answer to your question. I just think if you aren't going to buy an excluder, you should just manage your hives so the queen doesn't go where you don't want her to or just deal w/ her when she ends up there.

Or, you could find the sheet metal entrance gaurds which queens can't fit thru and see how big those holes are. Have fun.


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## Ignots (May 6, 2011)

1/4" = .25...too large 3/8" = .375...way too large 3/16 = .1875...don't know if that'd be close enough...


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I thought bees came in Metric sizes. So, wouldn't mms be more appropriate?


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## RAK (May 2, 2010)

buy a CNC router... it will make you many excluders in short amount of time... 

Actually if you build a CNC router it comes out to be fairly cheap...


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

#5 hardware cloth is the biggest that will not let a queen through. But it will also strip a lot of pollen off of the field bees... I would buy an excluder if you want one.


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## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

for the price of a excluder why would you want to reinvent the wheel. energy would be better used in other areas of beekeeping.


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## dbest (Aug 9, 2005)

jeremynj said:


> Most excluders have a space about .17 inches / 4.5 mm / little under 3/8s inch.
> 
> This would make 1/4 inch hardware cloth too small and 1/2 too large.
> 
> Does anyone know of a metal screen that I can buy or will one of these size screens work anyway ?


You can use 5 count hardware cloth. It's 5 holes per inch. Call these poeple they can get it for you. http://wireclothman.com/ They work well but the bees tend to load them up with propolis.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

But he wants to build it himself, not buy something.

I seriously think that if you want to build a queen excluder you shouldn't build one that looks or acts like a wirebound, plastic or zinc excluder. Get your self a thin piece of plywood and cut it into a circle about the size of a pie pan and lay that in the middle of the super you want to restrict the queen to. But, leave her plenty of room below.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

11/64 inch bit = 0.171875 inches. A #18 is 0.1695.


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## Katharina (May 2, 2011)

You may not even need one. My carni queens never even went upstairs into the supers. They were quite happy with their 2 deeps.


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