[Laurieston]

Trying to stay positive and plan for the better weather which so far does not seem to be appearing.

I am pretty confident that one of my two hives is going to make it, the other, after a quick peep the other day, is full of dead bees with just a few still buzzing in the cluster.

My question is how and when to replace the Queen excluder?  The larger hive is made up of two supers, was brood and stores, with excluder between.  I removed the excluder in the autumn but need to replace it sometime.  I made the mistake sometime last year of trapping my Queen in the stores super (above the excluder) and am trying to learn from that.  Is there a clever way of doing this without having to open hive for ages searching each and every frame for my, hopefully still existing Queen? 

Thanks for any tips.

[HesterF]

I'm still painting my hives so clearly no use but just curious as to why you removed the queen excluder? Would the workers not bring stores down for her as well?

H

[Laurieston]

Hi Hester,

I was advised to do it because the over-wintering cluster forms near the top of the hive and the excluder would prevent the Queen from travelling up with the rest of the bees, thereby leaving her alone in the brood box and dying from cold.  At least that is what I understood - not that my understanding is always accurate!

Any other views/reasons as to why we remove the excluder for the winter anyone?

[Plantoid]

You say you used two supers .. .. the queen is normally housed in a brood box which is twice the size of a super  yet will only have the single bee space
She is normal set to lay eggs on a brood frame which is twice the size of a super frame .
 Have you actualy got a few things muddled up ? or are you actually using two supers to house the broodnest?
 Re the queen excluder.
 
It normally sits on top of the brood box and  stays there all year round except when you are looking in the brood box .
 When you take it off be careful how you put it back on for apparently  putting it 90% round from its original position can affect the amount of honey you produce ....   it is usually laid in alignment with the direction of the frames  ( another subject on its own ) 
Without the QE and having two supers instead of the single larger brood box the queen will have roamed free and laid eggs all over the place he brood wax in the suoers is the same super frame  you'll need to try and get a brood box and compatable brood frames with wax if possible and leave he hive above the queen excluder  till the bees draw out some of the wax . Then once the wax is drawn find th equeen and gently capture her  or slip the frame that she is on into a covered cardboar box  then rebuild the hive with the now drawn brood box and frames in the bottom . shake the queeen and attendant bees down into the brood box  watch that she goes down into it and gently replace the QE then rebuild the hive . Any eggs in the supers will hatch in 15 days and the new bees will be attended to as normal .
 There will frequently  be some drone that hatch from the eggs in the supers  , these usually get stuck in the QE as they are so big . They die  so when you relook at the hive in five days time  make sure you clean any dead drones out the QE to stop disease build up .
 If any of what I've said does not make sense to your prehaps you need to find some one close to you that works a dozen or so hives.and has a few years experience under their belt to help you sort things out and give you face to face advice.
 

Trying to stay positive and plan for the better weather which so far does not seem to be appearing.

I am pretty confident that one of my two hives is going to make it, the other, after a quick peep the other day, is full of dead bees with just a few still buzzing in the cluster.

My question is how and when to replace the Queen excluder?  The larger hive is made up of two supers, was brood and stores, with excluder between.  I removed the excluder in the autumn but need to replace it sometime.  I made the mistake sometime last year of trapping my Queen in the stores super (above the excluder) and am trying to learn from that.  Is there a clever way of doing this without having to open hive for ages searching each and every frame for my, hopefully still existing Queen? 

Thanks for any tips.

[Plantoid]

Adding to what I 've already said .
 That  small ball of bees would have moved down to the queen  if there was enough stores in the brood box . they will still keep her warm by surrounding her and shivering to generate heat whilst the best part of the bees move over uncapped stores and open them up gorge themselves on honey and return back the the queen  the inner bees then move outwards and  do what the returning bees have just done.
I've often left a good 1& 1/2 full supers of honey on the hive over winter to ensure than my bees got the best possible feed and health from using their nown honey instead of feeding them sugar syrup which I had to buy , make and transport.
 If the quantity of  bees in the hive / nest was too small they would usually have died in early January

[HesterF]

Thanks Plantoid! I thought I must have missed something on my course but that's all what I'd understood so my minor panic is over....

Good luck Laurieston -sounds like it could be a long process (my main worry is finding the queen so that in itself sounds daunting)

H

[P6te]

Hi Laurieston,

It appears that you are in Germany and as such I guess you are not using the same type of hive we'd typically use in the UK (ours are The National hive as a rule).  However I'd offer the following.

Firstly I would NEVER have a Queen Excluder on the hive all year round.  As soon as the honey is removed in the Autumn it comes off and does not return until Supers are added in Spring.

If a Queen Excluder is left on over winter you are effectively dividing the hive such that the Queen does not have the ability to move with the cluster and as such it is highly likely that she will perish.

Regarding the supers you have on the hive, I would never leave a super on the hive over winter, if you have anything other than a single brood chamber then whatever else you add should be there as a double brood chamber (or brood and a half). Personally I have never used a super as a brood chamber but I would use double brood. If the queen lays in combs that are intended for honey extraction the combs will not be in a suitable condition for uncapping and extraction. Keep brood combs completely separate from any intended for extraction.

In the setup that you appear to have (I assume you have a deep brood box at the base and 1 or 2 supers on top with a single queen excluder between the brood box and bottom super) when the weather is warm enough to do an internal inspection (usually a sunny day around 10c in March) it will immediately be clear which side of the queen excluder the queen is (assuming she is alive) as that will be where you'll have eggs / capped brood. 

As an aside, as a rule when looking for the queen in a double brood chamber she will generally be located in the top box. If after smoking the bees (and waiting a few minutes) you separate the (double) brood chamber 9/10 she is in what was the top box.  Also when looking for the queen, she will usually be located on a frame where you'll find fresh eggs just having been laid.

Finally a comment regarding the orientation of the queen excluder, if you have a zinc or plastic 'slotted' queen excluder then I would ALWAYS lay it at 90 degrees to the frames .... and I like the frames laid out the warm way (frames running parallel to the entrance - but that is just my personal preference).  If you have a wire framed queen excluder then it could be placed either way although I'd still lay it at 90 degrees to the frames. I do not consider that either way will remotely affect the quantity of honey gathered / stored.

Hope this helps.

Pete

[Laurieston]

Thanks Pete and Plantoid, lots of ideas.

Yes, I'm in Germany and it seems things are done differently here.  I only started with Bees here, so I've never learnt the English words of beekeeping, and maybe I have used the wrong vocabulary.  Here is a picture of what is generally used here (although of course there are also Top Bar frames etc..).  This is called a Segeberger, and this one has 3 "zargen", the boxes with the frames in, each is identical and interchangable, holds 11 frames and can be used for brood or stores.  The Queen Excluder goes above whichever "zargen" hold the brood (depending on how much brood one has).  Above this is for stores.  The floor has a grill in and a place to slide in a board to catch anything that falls out (to monitor varroa or see if a mouse has crept in during the winter).  Under the lid is a see-through plastic sheet for monitoring purposes.  There is no door/hole in the roof at all, although a bee escape could be build it somehow I'm sure.

My set up has just 2 "zargen", floor and roof, with no excluder since the autumn.  After extracting I returned the mostly empty frames so the bees could clean the up and store the feed I gave them.  I was not sure that the frames in the brood section alone would hold enough stores to get the colony though the winter.  This does mean that the Queen is now able to wander through the whole hive (both what I intend to be brood and stores come the spring) and therefore will probably lay in the combs for extraction - I hadn't realised this as bad.  I suppose if she and they survive I will be happy enough. 

I will have to find her, and shut her below the excluder when it gets warmer (with these tips I can do it).  Overall it seems that the basics and philosophy are the same even if some of the mechanics are different, so thanks for all the help.

Laurieston,

ps. Just for interest this whole kit, in the picture, cost just under 100€

[P6te]

Hi Laurieston,

Thanks for that information, its most interesting.

Looking at your hive, it appears that the zargen are about the same size as National Brood chamber (or deep super if used that way). The National hive is 18 1/8" square with between 9 and 11 frames depending upon the spacing used. (usually 11 in a brood chamber and often 9 or 10 in a super)

If we use a 'Deep Super' (normally used as a Brood chamber) for honey it will contain approximately 50lbs (22kgs) of honey whereas a 'Shallow Super' holds about 30lbs (13kgs). In my view it is for this reason that Shallow Supers are used primarily for honey as they are easier to manage when full - especially if you consider a hive on a stand with 1 or 2 brood chambers and then upto 4 or 5 supers.  Removing the top (shallow) super from that height is heavy going!

Our hives are timber construction, the best being made of Western Red Cedar with 'cheaper' models being pine. When you think of our hives, I don't mean the 'pretty' traditional WBC hive live this:

I mean a hive live this:

In the above you'll see the Brood Chamber is deeper than the 2 Shallow Supers above it.

Regarding the cost of our hives ..... well ... we are talking a lot lot more than yours!! If you look here http://www.thorne.co.uk/hives-and-bees/hives/national/national-hive-assembled you'll see we are talking in the region of £341!

Pete

[anderso]

Hi to you all - to add the zargen is simaler to the hives coming out of in plastic - and each section is around the size of the national brood box.
 
in the autum you take off the QE to enable the cluster of bees to move to there food, and around the next couple of weeks you would need to be hefting (lift the back of the hive ) to get an idea of weight if light put some feed on.
 
I personal because of the way I support my colonies do not put on a QE but if i did it would be before the spring flow - hope this helps -
 
I use top bar hives both long and national ---

[Laurieston]

thanks for all the ideas and replies; I love this forum.

Pete, you're right about the weight thing.  When full our 'supers' are very heavy.  I have seen half size ones, maybe that might be an idea.  The mechanics of hives etc. is pretty complicated, but I do love it.  My middle daughter is also fascinated and often digs out some honey and the lures a bee onto her finger to feed, showing me the tongue going in and out.  I have missed them a lot this winter. 

Anderson, without a QE how do you prevent the Queen laying in your stores and having chewy lumps in your honey?  This in relation to what Pete says "If the queen lays in combs that are intended for honey extraction the combs will not be in a suitable condition for uncapping and extraction. Keep brood combs completely separate from any intended for extraction" or is that an opinion.  Maybe you have a different approach...

Anyway, thanks.  We are promised up to 10degrees plus next week, so maybe they'll be flying again soon.  Here's hoping.

[P6te]

Hi Laurieston,

Regarding:

Anderson, without a QE how do you prevent the Queen laying in your stores and having chewy lumps in your honey?  This in relation to what Pete says "If the queen lays in combs that are intended for honey extraction the combs will not be in a suitable condition for uncapping and extraction. Keep brood combs completely separate from any intended for extraction" or is that an opinion.  Maybe you have a different approach...

If you look at old brood combs you will notice the the centre cells (generally an oval in the centre of the frame) look darker than those in the corners. If combs are very old you will even see that the cells are slightly smaller. This is because every time a cell is used to rear a bee the cell is effectively lined.  This lining builds up and it is this that cannot be uncapped cleanly with a hot knife. If you render an old frame you will always be left with a messy residue that won't melt. It is for this reason that I recommend brood frames are not interchanged with those in a super.  Furthermore I always use Drone foundation in supers as the larger cells make extraction easier.

Hope this helps.

Pete

[Hadders]

Hi Hester,

Any other views/reasons as to why we remove the excluder for the winter anyone?

I was taught that a metal excluder acts as a 'heat sink' in winter and takes heat from the inside of the hive to the outside as the edges of the excluder are not insulated in any way.

[ZacB]

Just to add to the melting pot 
We top & tail (as we call it) around here, Suffolk. After extraction at end of year and any pre-winter syrup feeding, super gets placed under brood box and QX removed.
In the Spring, back to normal and QX put back in place 
Queen (To date anyway) has normally started laying upstairs in the brood box by this time and stores that had previously been in super munched / moved.
Don't ask me why - it's just the way my mentor worked and    I haven't lost a hive yet 

[Stellan Vert]

Hi Zac

Thats a neat idea.

The super gets stored under the brood box, the bees have access to super over winter and you put the Queen Excluder straight on top of the brood box in spring.

SV