In the full length version of ThisVideo (I couldn’t find it in the live posts. Cedar says “You can use or not use a queen excluder in between your brood box and super” Because “Some queens will lay in the super box and some won’t” To me, this seems highly UN-advisable as Queens will/can lay wherever they can physically go from my experience. Any reason why this would be a practice specific to Australia? Also- In the US you need two brood boxes to build a strong enough hive to have a super added and completely filled. Does the super lifer have long enough legs to accomodate a 3 deep hive? (2 brood & one super?)
I took from the video that if you aren’t sure then use the excluder.
The lifter can handle a three deep hive but no more. Whether the leg will reach the ground will depend on the height of your stand. My two deep hive with the adjustable legs is on a table which is taller than a deep and the lifter leg reaches OK but it wouldn’t if I had a three.
OK Thanks for the leg length explanation. However, what you said about he excluder makes zero sense. Why would anyone NOT use a queen excluder in between a brood box and a super? NOT using an excluder would be asking for the queen to create brood in the flow frames. I don’t know why he said this in the video. To me that is Ill-advised information.? (the full video not the short I sent)
The advice was in the context of wintering a hive. When it gets really cold the colony compresses to a ball in the centre and consumes reserves of honey. They move up into the super to follow the honey. If this happens the queen can get left behind and perish from the cold. One method is to remove the excluder to let her keep inside the ball. Generally in these conditions she isn’t laying so no problem.
Also, Flow frame cells are sized differently. They are wider and deeper than what queens generally like to use so some queens have been found to not use them. Some do.
Me, I like to play it safe and use the excluder as I’m in a sup-tropical region that doesn’t get too cold. Other beekeepers like to experiment.
One thing I’ve learned about beekeeping is that there are almost no hard and fast rules and that there are sometimes better ways of doing things than the current practice in a particular region.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to clean up the mess in a Flow frame after it’s been used for brood. Yes, the queen will lay in the larger cells of the Flow frames and choose not to fertilise the eggs, producing drones. Of course, the workers might prevent her laying if it’s the wrong time, or cannibalise the eggs. But there are enough reports of brood in Flow frames that I would choose to avoid the possibility. For others, it might not be a problem.
My choice is to use a bee food super (usually a half depth) or two depending on how harsh and long the winter is, and remove the Flow super for winter. In those harsh climates I would remove the QE so the queen can stay with the cluster.
Double brood boxes in my opinion is a hang over from the old days. “We do it this way because it’s always been done this way.” There are many successful single brood box beekeepers in all climates, even in Canada. It’s a slightly different management strategy to doubles without the extra lifting. Other than a one season experiment with doubles about five years ago, I have only used 8F singles.
As with all beekeeping advice, articles, books, videos and presentations, take the information and do your best to understand it. See if the concepts make sense to you, try them out to see if they work. If not, stop. If they do and it provides a benefit without an unacceptable cost or risk, then continue. Either way, your beekeeping has evolved.
Mike
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To that I would say….Just take the super OFF for winter? smaller space = warmer. I don’t get it. (why he said what he said)
Maybe down under one brood box suffices but not in the US. I mean sure, it’s possible, but not if you actually want to produce honey in your super.
As @ClintSC9 said, it’s to allow the queen to follow the cluster up to the honey stores in the super during winter. I wouldn’t for the reasons I said, but others do without issue.
It’s a big call to say something won’t work in a country that spans seven climate zones.
There’s a Facebook group called “Honey Bee Single Brood Chamber Management” with nearly 5K members mostly from the US and from every climate zone. If it didn’t work or yields were low, such a group wouldn’t continue to grow in membership.
NOW I understand. Seems to me though like that would be asking for a mess.
I didn’t mean ALL USA sorry. I should have specified Southern CA