Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Queen excluder
This is a flat grid of slotted zinc, plastic or wire that lies on top of the brood box (see
Figure 8). Slotted zinc excluders can rip worker wings, so I prefer to use plastic excluders
that are cheaper and less prone to warping/bending than metal ones. Worker bees can
pass through the grid to the upper boxes to store honey, but the queen is unable to due
to her larger size. This means that the upper boxes will contain only honeycomb and
stored honey and will have no brood in them. This is important at harvest time because
the beekeeper knows that any combs they are placing in their extractor will have only
honey in them and that any bees they accidentally transfer to the honey room won't be
the all-important queen.
The grids can easily be damaged and, if this happens, the queen will go up into the
honey chambers and will start laying eggs all through the hive. As noted above, zinc
excluders may have sharp edges that can damage wings and, if you accidentally bend
the zinc (which is easily done when trying to lift it off after the bees have stuck it down
with propolis), it stays bent and the slots may warp and widen. Wire excluders usually
have a wooden frame around them that often warps, again exposing areas where the
queen may slip through. Plastic excluders are tough, don't stay bent if knocked and are
easy on the wings.
Many beekeepers don't use queen excluders (calling them honey excluders instead), but
they make life much easier and, for the commercial beekeeper, ease means speed and
therefore less hourly costs. My advice is to use them until
you
have worked out a reason
why you shouldn't.
Supers
These boxes are so called because they are 'super' imposed on the brood chamber. They
are often called 'honey supers'. Many beekeepers use ¾-sized boxes here for a variety of
reasons, the main one being that when a full-sized box is full of honey, it is extremely
heavy and difficult to move about. When full of honey, however, ¾ boxes are lighter and
easier to handle. If the bees keep filling them up, you can place more on.
Some beekeepers, especially commercial operators, use full-sized boxes as supers (i.e.
the same-sized boxes as the brood chamber). This has advantages in that all the boxes
