Unscientifically , I can see the argument that the queen excluder causes undo stress on the bees.
Bees prefer a bee space of .375". A queen excluder offers .163". Itās obvious looking at the video that bees have to squeeze through the excluder.
Does it hurt/damage them? I guess if I were to make all the doorways in my house 1 foot wide, or small enough that I had to squeeze through, I would wind up sore and have some abrasions. I know one thing, Iād be reluctant to pass from one room to the next. However, Iām not a bee. A bee will injure itself or die for the benefit of the hive.
Luckily, itās usually the young bees having to squeeze through an excluder: Once they get old and creaky like me, theyāre foragers
I noticed, when putting on a plastic QX, the bees come up through straight away. Using a metal QX, they stay down in the broodbox while Iām there.
I think metal requires more heating in the cold and can get pretty damn hot in summer.
So, Iām wondering if the flow people @KieranPI have a reason to supply plastic QX rather than metal ones.
Seeing no corners are cut to cheapen the product, if the flow people considered metal a better option, Iām sure they would have supplied metal wired ones for a couple of $$ more.
I feel my bees like the plastic ones better and I donāt mind replacing them once in a while.
Would be great to hear what the flow people think according to their experience.
From a Beekeepers commercial perspective, wire may be better, ease of handling and all.
But Iām sure my bees like the plastic better.
I see your point about metal wire QX getting hot, but mine are actually framed with wood around the outside, so I donāt think it is a problem when the hive is closed up. In the UK, we used to have thin sheet aluminium queen excluders. Although the edges canāt have been gentle on the bees, they worked pretty well. We never had a queen in our supers when we used them.
I think it is all a matter of personal preference in the end. The guys who donāt use excluders at all have a good point too, but on my Flow hives, I will always use one.
Actually, the hive I thought hated the metal excluder, has now adopted it fully. Phew.
I canāt get metal excluders here with a wooden frame around, and all carpenters I asked are scratching their head, as the metal excluders all have a box fitting metal rim around already.
So I bit the bullet and tried, and the bees donāt mind, just as all experienced beeks say.
The gaps I get between boxes and metal excluder are probably quickly filled in by the bees.
As a newbie, I guess I wanted to provide them gapless, which the plastic QX provided.
As often, the experienced beeks were correct in dispersing my fears about the gaps. Yet, the plastic QXs provide less gaps prior to beesā sealing, which could be of great advantage to weaker colonies, less SHB getting in etc.
Weak colonies of course have no place in a functioning apiary, but there are soooo many things that can upset a colonieās balance.
Do you actually know the wire space needed to exclude the queen and let bees through, except drones? And the wire space needed to exclude all bees, like in the screened bottom? Like the biggest screen possible to not let bees through.
Canāt get either stocked at the local hardware store, but once I have measures, could order.
Would be grateful to get some measurements for that to work with in future.