Today I Made

[Lesgold]

If the idea works, plastic queen excluders may have some practical use. They are easy to cut and are also inexpensive. I can buy them for about $5 each which is about a quarter of the price of steel ones.

[Terri Yaki]

My hives came with plastic QEs, how do you know that the bees don't like them?

[Lesgold]

In general, bees don?t like plastic and tend to stay away from it unless there are forcing issues such as a good honey flow. Once the bees decide to pass through, the issue is reduced. The open area in a plastic queen excluder is also less than what you would find in a metal excluder. Flat plastic queen excluders are easy to scrape clean but the bee access holes take a bit more work. Metal excluders can be steamed or boiled in water and then quickly dropped on a hard surface to remove the wax build up. Some plastic excluders work better than others. The ones used in the queen cages don?t work overly well. That?s why I cut them up.

[The15thMember]

I have very limited experience with queen excluders, but I will say, in addition to what Les said, the bees in the box where I have excluders set up are visibly irritated and seem to be avoiding going through the excluders unless they have too.  I have removed a trapping setup on a hive and more than once had the bees kind of rush in or out of the area, since they were trying to avoid crossing the barrier of the QX. 

[Terri Yaki]

Interesting and thanks. Tomorrow is hive inspection day and last week I installed a plastic QE and put my medium brood box above it to get it cleaned out. I'll look for behavioral changes.

[Bill Murray]

They are easy to cut and are also inexpensive. I can buy them for about $5 each which is about a quarter of the price of steel ones.

I agree the cost of the metal excluders was what kept me from trying to manufacture what you just did. I was waiting for one to wear out. I thought about that and said My granddaughter would have to make it. Low and behold maybe a reason for the plastics.

Thanks les.
Bill

[Ben Framed]

For the purpose of your intention, I am wondering why not simply use the old time wood queen cages or the plastic type, the types used when banking queens or in shipping queens?

[Lesgold]

Hi Phillip,

I like the idea of allowing nurse bees to actually enter the cage next to the queen rather than just touching her through the screen. The thinking is that the queens pheromones would?ve spread more effectively through the hive and reduce chances of swarm cells being built. Both of these methods also allow access to the queen from both sides of the frame.

[Michael Bush]

If the attendants can't get to the queen you will eventually have a wax moth larvae in with the queen and she won't do anything about it.

[Lesgold]

Another idea that I?ve been mulling over is the idea of a frame holder to keep the queen in one location. This could be handy for making a hive broodless or for getting larvae of the correct age if I?m grafting. The idea of introducing a drone comb in with the queen also appears to have merit as it would attract varroa during the time that the rest of the hive is loosing capped brood.

When I was up in Sydney, a couple of plastic queen excluders were purchased to help with this project. The thinking was to make one frame cage and test it before spending  money on buying a few. There were a few technical problems that had to be solved before the construction started. Once they were sorted I got in and made the cage with very few issues. I decided to use 3mm plywood and strips of pine for the project. Bee space on the ends and under the frame had to be sacrificed but as it was only a temporary fixture, I thought the bees would handle it. I?ve read reports on some of the commercial cages available in Europe and America with mixed results coming through. Some allowed the queen to escape and others needed to be used on the outer edge of the brood box. I wanted to avoid both situations if possible.

The first step was to cut sides and a base out of the thin ply and then glue strips of pine in locations that would centre the frame and also aid as attach,ent points for the queen excluder. You may notice on the photo that a frame was sitting in place.

[Lesgold]

After the glue had dried, two queen excluders were cut down and attached to either side of the cage. Tacks were used to hold the excluders in place.

[Lesgold]

Spacer strips were then made to sit around the inserted frame so that the queen could not escape. Small gaps were left to allow for variation in frame sizes and also propolis build up. The gaps were not large enough for the queen to get through.

[Lesgold]

Spring clamps were made from strapping iron to hold everything in place.

[Lesgold]

The final test was to see if it would fit into a deep. You may see that bee space on thee de and underside of the cage is lost. Bees will have to move through the excluders for lateral movement around the hive. I believe that the cage would be glued in place with propolis if it was left in the hive for too long. It will be interesting to see what issues it creates. I am now working on some modified frames that I can also position inside the cage. Experimenting is a lot of fun??

[Lesgold]

I recently bought a green plastic drone comb but in looking at it, it will need to be drawn out early in the season if it is going to work. Unless there is plenty of wax applied to it, the bees will tend to ignore it later in the season. Hope I?m wrong on this as they are cheap and would handle being thrown about a bit. Decided to make a couple of frames that would be essentially foundationless. If they are placed above a queen excluder, the bees will draw drone comb which is what I?m chasing. The other advantage of placing the empty frame above a queen excluder is that they will draw comb down to the bottom bar which doesn?t always happen in a brood box. A frame was assembled with a space for a queen cage which could be inserted when required. A waxed starter strip was inserted below the middle bar and the bottom of the frame was wired to help give the drone comb some support.

[Lesgold]

A dummy block was made to sit in the cage space so that bees would leave this area alone when drawing comb. A 25mm block of wood was covered with some thin plastic from and old ice cream container. It was made so that the block would slip in and hold in position by covering some of the top and middle bars.

[Lesgold]

The middle bar was grooved on both sides which allowed small pieces of foundation to be slipped into position. This would result in worker cells being produced in this area but starter strips could also be used here. I may try both methods. The frame when fully drawn could be removed from the hive and stored until required. The queen cage containing the queen could be added to the frame and slipped into the frame cage when the hive needs to be made broodless. After about a week, the queen could be released so that she could lay out the drone frame. At approximately 24 days, the fully capped frame could be removed from the hive and frozen. It should be full of varroa at this stage. The hive could then be treated. That?s my thinking anyway. Any thoughts?

[cao]

Like your creativity.  I do see a flaw though.  If you pull the frame to freeze it as it is now you will have worker brood in the top.  I would skip the wires in the bottom and just cut out the drone brood when necessary.

[Lesgold]

Good point Cao. If the hive is broodless, varroa will move into the worker brood as well. The purpose of the wires was to allow me to uncap the drone brood and reuse the comb without having the bees redraw it. I may be wrong with my thinking on both as I don?t have any experience with varroa. Thanks for your advice. Cutting out the drone brood would be much quicker solution especially early in the season where comb could be built quickly.

[BeeMaster2]

One thing to keep in mind, when there is food coming in, the bee will continue to have at least 15 percent drones. When you remove all of the drone brood after it is capped the bees are immediately going to start making more drones. Capped brood doesn?t require any resources, all of the resources are required to get them capped.
Jim Altmiller