Can anyone tell me what is going on here? I’ve pulled this excluder out as the queen has got up into the super and started laying up there. Found lots of dead bees (not drones) stuck in the grid. All trying to get through from the brood box to the super. I’m thinking there’s a problem with the excluder but I’m putting it out there to see if there’s a beek out there who’ve seen similar.20190831_133401|374x500
Something isn’t right there Alan in that if the gap is wide enough for the queen to have passed through then worker bees wouldn’t get stuck in the grid being smaller than a queen. It is odd that the workers could pass thru it to get into the super but ‘got stuck’ going back down thru it, and yet the queen could get thru it. I have the same QX in some of my hives and not had an issue. I bet they are mass produced so I just used a vernier to measure a new QX of the same make and compared it to another make I have and they are the same.
Sorry, I can’t come up with an answer that makes sense. Where the bees actually ‘stuck’ in the gap or maybe that is where they ‘ended up’? As for the queen in the super I wonder if she was on the QX during an inspection and she was on the top of the QX when it was fitted back onto the brood box.
Cheers
This would make a lot of sense as to why so many workers were stuck then, having tried to follow her up there
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Hi Alan, most of those bees look like drones to me, going by the fur on the tails. It’s only drones that get stuck going back through, from my experience. Take a close look at the QX, there may be a bent wire or some gap the queen can fit through.
cheers
Hey Alan,those are stuck Drones, sometimes a smaller Queen can squeeze through as well,not usually but it actually happens more than people think.If u ever put escape boards on and find super with alot of bees in it still ,chances are there is a queen or at the very least brood,it happens…
I agree with the comments above - fuzzy, rounded butts = drones. Not a stinger in sight. I presume that your super is a Flow super? That would explain the large number of stuck drones. 
Thanks everyone for all the replies. Upon reflection (and magnification of the photo) I’m thinking they are drones. When I initially saw it I didn’t have my ‘close inspection glasses’ on so they didn’t actually look like drones. I mean drones are huge and generally unmistakable. I’m still in a quandary about the queen. That particular hive isn’t a FlowHive and I hadn’t inspected the brood for a while and had been swapping out honey frames and stickies for quite a while. I have swapped the frames back down to the brood box and sighted the queen. She was a beauty. Hopefully all is well now for the Spring that is upon us.
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My eyes are not what they used to be but if the dead bees are drones then that answers a lot of the questions if the queen was above the QX so emerged drones were trying to get out of the super , but then how did she get there? My thinking is that you removed the QX and didn’t notice the queen was on it and when you refitted the QX she was on the top side. Either that or you have a bent wire and she walked thru the gap, and either is a possible Alan. I for one have seen a queen on the QX as I have removed it and could easily have missed seeing her.
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