Queen Excluder Gets Stuck

Modifications & Building Bee Hives
1

Everytime we try to remove the flowhive super from our brood box the plastic queen excluder gets stuck on the lower frames. We crack the hive all the way round and then we twist the super before trying to lift it off but it takes two of us and we must hold the brood box otherwise the whole hive twists on the mounting blocks. We always get it open but was wandering if another technique is available or if I should try using a metal excluder that I have. We are very conscious of distuburbing the hive and squashing bees. We always clean up the excluder any comb on the top of the frames before closing the hive.
Gary

2

Try the metal excluder. I find the plastic ones sag and the bees propolise them to the fames. The metal ones don’t sag so its less of a problem.

Cheers
Rob.

2 Likes
3

Thanks Rob I will give it a go.

4

I had the same problem- by myself it was getting quite hard to try and lift off the super without lifting up the brood box with it. No matter how much I pried around the outside I couldn’t get it to budge. my solution was to lift out 3 of the flow frames temporarily. Then I lifted the other 3 up and back down to break the bridge comb underneath them.

I might switch to metal excluders too- as cleaning up the plastic one took quite a while. The metal ones seem to give the bees more access as well. Also my plastic one has chipped and cracked here and there at the sides…

5

Another good feature of the metal excluders is the round bars that form the grid. Theyre more gentle on the bees. I gave up plastic excluders after finding the queen in my super on a couple of occasions, wasn’t gonna let that cat out of the bag more than twice.

1 Like
6

Thanks for that I will try that, makes sense good idea. Wandering is it best to take the queen excluder or leave it when removing the super initially?

7

Hmmm so interesting to see these ideas. Thanks guys.
to date i have gone plastic but i am new and the bees certainly always glue it down but not as bad as you are saying here.

8

I had advice from a bee keeper to nail the plastic excluder to the bottom of the super. That has helped.