BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER > REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS

To exclude queen or not in super??

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monkeyfish:
Greetings,

This is my first year and all appears to be going well. <2 deeps w/brood/honey/pollen - 1 super>
I put the super on after I saw the 2nd deep mostly full and now a month later they have not drawn any comb in it yet.
 
My questions:

Is this normal for first year activity?
Should I remove the queen exluder even at the risk of brood laying up there?

Thanks for your suggestions!

~Scott

BigRog:
Great AV
Lurch get that man a drink!

Robo:
Loose the excluder.  The bees will not go thru an excluder unless it is drawn comb, or there is brood there.  

Unless your making comb honey,  I would advise not using a queen excluder (also known as a honey excluder).  

Since this is your first year, I would advise NOT trying comb honey until you get some experience under your belt.

Anonymous:
There are plenty of bees hanging out among the <combless> frames, just not building anything I guess. I did take out the excluder and we'll see what happens.

I'm guessing that the low rainfall this summer is also a factor? I should probably be feeding them to compensate for this?

Regards,
~Scott

Kris^:
I had that problem, three weeks with no comb built in there.  So I pulled the excluder out and, after another week of doing nothing, they ended up filling the box with comb and nectar within a week.  I had a queen supercedure take place there, or they may have started sooner.  It also happened that we got some much-needed rain during that week, so that could have contributed to an increased nectar flow.  Or it could be that my new queen needed additional laying space, so they went to work.  Anyhow, someone here directed me to the following page, which explained the concept of "baiting" a super before putting on the excluder, which gave me ideas on how to get them to actually do something in that box.  (Of course, I had to get them to draw the comb before baiting it.)  Maybe you'll find it helpful, too.

http://www.beekeeper.org/april2002.html

-- Kris

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