Excellent video! I’ve never used a queen excluder ( restricter) and I only use deeps,the bees always chimney up through the middle like a pyramid. Once the there’s a belt of nectar across the the top of the brood the queen never crosses it, natures excluder. I let her lay as much brood as she wants, each to their own on this subject there’s always different ways too keep bees.
Sounds like a good plan I see you are encouraging the bees up then the queen excluder goes back and all is how you like it . Great stuff . Nice video 🐝
What condition is the pollen frame in? Has pollen mite got to it and is it now powdery in the cells? Pollen will deteriorate over time and will not have the same nutritional value. If there was no disease in that hive then yes it can be used. Any frames like that could be stored in a freezer same as honey frames. Hope this is helpful.
Hello John and Lin, you’ve got yourself a nice colony of bees there John you did say your queen was a Carniolan nice temperament they have . Queen excluders I don’t use them the bees can sometimes swarm if they run out of space in your bottom brood box that’s my experience with queen excluders John , I found that I had to be looking in the hive too much with them on so with my experience I’ve done away with them John . Thank you John nice Vlog.
Hello my friend. My hive is up and thriving and I simply love it. So wonderful to be back. It will be time soon to add a queen excluder yet I am hearing so many friends and mentors tell me not to because it stops honey production and often brings on swarming intensions. What do you think?
Hi Brad, it’s one of them questions that you will never get the true answer, it is just peoples preferred understanding, first of all without a queen excluder you can end up with brood in the honey super, it can all get a bit messy, so there is definitely fours and against, I sometimes leave no queen excluder until they’ve drawn the frames out, then popone on it, I have one hive that will not put honey in the super if I have a queen excluder on, there are people in the states that have four or five honey supers on full of honey with Queen excluders on , i’m sure the bees would prefer if we didn’t put them on, at this time I continue to use them myself, happy beekeeping nice to hear from you john
Thanks John, I have only just come across this one. April seems a long time ago, but then next April is not too far away, cant we slow down time! I suppose bees don't worry about such matters, they just plan ahead. Best wishes, hope its not too hot for you. Regards. Peter
Hi Peter, It has been too hot for me, I have been cooking trying to do work with my bees, I do appreciate you following and commenting, kind regards John.
Thanks John .. queen excluders are definitely a personal opinion in the beekeeping community .. my experience of them has always been a positive one, where I've used them for honey supers to finding ninja queen's in double brood boxes. My all time favourite thing to see in a hive apart from her majesty is the teddy bear drones. I have only a few colonies (all deeps) at the minute but was always taught to put in 1x medium frame into each colony to let them pull down drone cells for queenie to lay in. So far it's been an invaluable thing for me ensuring well mated queen's when I need them. Love the videos as always John and thanks for your invaluable opinion.
Hi Alvin, I have put the odd super frame into a deep brood boxes for this but will take your advice and put one in each deep I also sometimes put drone wax foundation in brood boxes I think I will do a video on this, thanks for your kind and helpful comments over many videos John.
I was taught the same, using a shallow frame for drones. When varroa came along it was practice to remove the drone brood, but I leave the drone brood there, now as a valuable resource.
@@beehinde I believe there has been poorly mated queens due to lack of drones in the sky for some years now. I have been using drone foundation for years I love drones thanks again
Hi John Yes John i have the same issue there is masses of brood and stores in the brood box there has been a super on for the last two week and they havnt touched it which i found strange as there has been plenty of foreging going on. Im goi g to try your method next inspection. I have the plastic quenn excluders but plan to change then to the framed type ASAP. Very informative video and it has given me some good ideas and guidance, Cheers for that it is most appreciated.
Hi Mike, I like the one sided wooden frame queen excluders as they have bee space but some have bee space both sides and they build brace comb on one side because there is already bee space under the frames, One of my comments stated its to do with my carniolan subspecies of a weston honey bee do you know what stain of bees you have, great beekeeping always something new to learn, nice to hear from you mike , keep well to you and your family John.
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 Hi John i have a strain of queen that originated from Holland. My assosiation bought some in to stock the apiary. They are third generation from the original stock very calm and are building well. I spoke the the guy i bought them from and he said that they will move up when they are ready. However my instincts are tending to want to give them some assistance. I might experiment with one colony to see how it goes. What do you think? Regards....
@@micla6221 Great to experiment , if it works it works, the bees were not going into my super but did after removing the q excluder , we are all different when it comes to looking after bees, thats is a good thing in my mind, See you sometime Mike,
I think the red pollen is White Horsechestnut John. It's flowering at the mo near my apiary and I have noticed it being brought back by my bees too. Think it's actually toxic in large quantities to bees, or at least that's what I have read!
Thanks for the informative information I have looked on pollen charts for that answer and never found it so thanks a new thing learned today great, John
After many conversations with over 15 trusted beekeepers, I've come to the conclusion that queen excluders, most definitely reduce the number of bees that will move upwards to a super. I've also learned that they will hinder how fast supers are filled up with honey--that is for you and this I know from experience. Yet something else to consider is, queen exculders also stress bees, and perhaps even damage their wing. With all that said, I understand if they must be used. I believe it's a personal choice. I'm not using them next year and will see the difference.
Hi Brad, there are so many controversial things with beekeeping, some do not like using smoke , some people use those horrible thick gloves made of leather, some are treatment free beekeeping some do not use queen excluders, some are against national hives, some beekeepers use flow hives, some use plastic foundation, I am totally against flow hives myself because of the plastic in them, I do not think it is natural for bees to have plastic in the hive , also plastic is bad for the planet, I guess the answer to it all is it would be better if humans left bees to fend for themselves whatever we do to them is not really natural, as you say we all have a personal choice, hope you didn’t think I’m having a rant, I’m just putting a point of view across, hope you are keeping well with all this virus about , happy beekeeping for 2021, hope it all goes well for you, John and Lin
Really enjoyed that episode John. We use the plastic excluders and too have found that sometimes the ladies don’t like them. I’ve kept bees for some yrs now and love learning for you ‘Good ole Boys’. Can you elaborate a little on how you build up a colony after swam management whether it be splits or artificial swarm or Padgen etc. So many videos on development of colonies but few discuss the combining and building up 5he colonies after. I did enjoy your newspaper method video tho.
Hi Marcus, I was looking to do a video on this very thing, I think it should be quite soon, But there are so many different beekeeper out there all seem to have their own way of doing things, I like to add capped brood from a strong colony when building up a nuc, and give them pollen sub,and syrup 2 to 1 hopefully the video will be out soon , thanks for commenting John.
Hi Brad, there is evidence that this can occur as you say, I do not always use excluders but when I do I minimise the effect of Queen excluders, by using wood framed excluders with smooth tubular runs These have bottom bee space, As seen in my video. I haven’t noticed any wings that are damaged on the bees The plastic ones have no bee space and can have sharp corners to the plastic there are also queen excluders out there that are stamped out of one sheet of metal with slots cut out, these tend to have sharp edges in my opinion. There is a saying ask five beekeepers a question and you will get six different answers, beekeeping can be controversial in lots of ways. I always look at how I am a beekeeper and what I do, I guess over the years I involved my own way of doing things that I feel comfortable with, without causing too much stress to my lovely bees good question from you though, always worth thinking about what we are doing. Kind regards john
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 Thanks John. Can you clarify what "bottom bee space" means? Please. I've been told to only use the metal one made by mannLake. His seem to be medical grade cut and are smooth and cut with precision. I started asked this question because I just ordered a Flow Hive 2. And I have learned, plan and simply, queen excluders restrict bee. NO WAY AROUND it. Studies show that a large portion of the bees won't even go through them. I'm guessing that I will just have to learn from experience. And if I don't use one and the queen starts laying in my Flow Super, I will be forced to use one. (last question. Have you heard of or seen the excluders that are made out of 100% wood?) Wonder if they would work better. Just some question to throw in the air. God bless you.
@@bradgoliphant Sounds like you are researching well, there are two types of Bee space, top bee space and bottom bee space , most beekeepers seem to have bottom bee space that is the space for the bees to walk about under the honey or brood frame , when you put one box on top of another you do not crush bees, some beekeepers have there bee space on top so there is a drop from the edge of the top of the bee box to where the bees are walking about. On top of the frames , I have found there is a lot of strong opinions regarding beekeeping, but as you say through experience I think we will all find the best way to suit us, I have no experience with flow hives , hope you get on well with yours, have you seen that excellent beekeeper on RUclips who has flow hives, called, The way to bee , Fredrick Dunn , i’m pretty sure he uses queen excluders , John
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 Thank you John for being so helpful. And Ya, I know Frederick Dunn. I speak with him all the time. He does NOT use the queen excluders actually. This is what set up all these questions. He has a video saying this: That if you have a least a double-deep hive (two deep hive boxes) of room for the queen and her brood, 9 times out of 10, she will not move up any higher---except in winter months. He also teaches that queen excluders both wear the bees down, and limit honey production, as well as, over 30% of the worker bees never pass through it as well. So I guess I've made up my mind NOT to use one, and if I get the queen laying up in my Flow Hive Super Frames, so be it. I'm grateful for you. I can tell by your videos your a kind and sweet man. I''m grateful having met you. Brad
@@bradgoliphant thanks Brad, I intend to have a top bar hive with no green excluders, I guess we are both looking forward to next year when we can enjoy working with our bees, hope all goes well with your flow hive. Kind regards john
Hi Stuart, I did say at the end of the video, maybe you mist it, I replace the queen excluder in 5 days with the queen in the bottom box, then the eggs emerge after 21 days, then the bees backfill the empty cells with honey. hope that helps John.
In the first minute before you mentioned Carnies, I thought that was what you were going to say. What you have done was standard practice for that sub species. Although it is not always the case.
Hi thanks for your very informative comment, The same queen and the same hive last year did fill two supers with the queen excluder in but i took it out after the first was filled, all my other hives have local queens, with queen excluders in them no problem thanks again John.
Just going through the Spring Edition of the Welsh Beekeeper, Mark Winston's book The Biology of the Honeybee. Carnies prefer a cavity of 60L, AMM 40L, Italian 30L and tropical races 20L or less
Hi John a question on queens if I may, I have a hive that I assumed had gone queenless over winter (no eggs and no sign of a queen) so I gave them a frame from another hive with a queen cell on it. I went to inspect a couple of days ago and the cell had hatched then I found a ball of bees on a separate frame and discovered a beautiful queen being attacked, I rescued her and went through the hive but could not find another queen so I caged her with a candy stopper hoping they would accept her. It took them 2 days to eat their way in but on inspection yesterday there was no sign of her then I noticed a much smaller queen walking across my glove so I put her back in and closed the hive up. The smaller one may be the original queen that I have missed or may be a virgin that has emerged but I don’t know where the other queen could have come from I don’t have any other hive producing queens at the moment so the big question is how long should I leave them before deciding the queen is no good and dispatching her? Thanks Clive
Hi Clive, how interesting, this sounds just the sort of thing that happens to at times, beekeeping is not always straightforward, I find very often there is some decision to make with my bees its not always right or wrong, I would leave her to see what egg laying patton she has, 4 or 5 weeks then decide but maybe she will not make it through the winter even with a good egg laying patton, maybe the bees will create a supersedure cell, not been very helpful sorry, hope all goes well with this hive of yours kind regards John.
John Bee Man Saunders Hi John there are no eggs so far this season I’ve kept them going with a couple of frames of capped brood from strong hives, the bees also act as if they’re queenless very jittery on the frames and milling around the entrance before take off.
@@cliveharrison733 Yes milling around before take off good sign no mated queen, maybe eggs will appear soon, if the queen gets mated okay im sure you will sort it somehow john.
![Queen Excluders - Materials and Options | Which one is right for my needs? [Advice from a Beekeeper]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tRhqU5pcmyM/mqdefault.jpg)
Excellent video! I’ve never used a queen excluder ( restricter) and I only use deeps,the bees always chimney up through the middle like a pyramid. Once the there’s a belt of nectar across the the top of the brood the queen never crosses it, natures excluder. I let her lay as much brood as she wants, each to their own on this subject there’s always different ways too keep bees.
Thanks John. Great video. Thanks for taking the time to share your bees and knowledge with us. Keep well my friend.
Thanks Roger, trust you and your family are all keeping well at this time, John.
Sounds like a good plan I see you are encouraging the bees up then the queen excluder goes back and all is how you like it . Great stuff . Nice video 🐝
Thanks a lot, you explained in one sentence what I tried to demonstrate in a 20 min video, John.
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 yes but only after I had watched it. well explained .😊
Thanks. Can I use a pollen frame from last year from a hive that did not make it through the winter, In Massachusetts, in a new hive?
Sorry not sure, I would not myself , maybe someone will add to this comment for more advice. John.
What condition is the pollen frame in? Has pollen mite got to it and is it now powdery in the cells? Pollen will deteriorate over time and will not have the same nutritional value. If there was no disease in that hive then yes it can be used. Any frames like that could be stored in a freezer same as honey frames. Hope this is helpful.
Hello John and Lin, you’ve got yourself a nice colony of bees there John you did say your queen was a Carniolan nice temperament they have . Queen excluders I don’t use them the bees can sometimes swarm if they run out of space in your bottom brood box that’s my experience with queen excluders John , I found that I had to be looking in the hive too much with them on so with my experience I’ve done away with them John . Thank you John nice Vlog.
I did try not using them but in winter I ended up with wax moth in my supers maybe i will have one more go with out them in , thanks John.
Hello my friend. My hive is up and thriving and I simply love it. So wonderful to be back. It will be time soon to add a queen excluder yet I am hearing so many friends and mentors tell me not to because it stops honey production and often brings on swarming intensions. What do you think?
Hi Brad, it’s one of them questions that you will never get the true answer, it is just peoples preferred understanding, first of all without a queen excluder you can end up with brood in the honey super, it can all get a bit messy, so there is definitely fours and against, I sometimes leave no queen excluder until they’ve drawn the frames out, then popone on it, I have one hive that will not put honey in the super if I have a queen excluder on, there are people in the states that have four or five honey supers on full of honey with Queen excluders on , i’m sure the bees would prefer if we didn’t put them on, at this time I continue to use them myself, happy beekeeping nice to hear from you john
Thanks John, I have only just come across this one. April seems a long time ago, but then next April is not too far away, cant we slow down time! I suppose bees don't worry about such matters, they just plan ahead.
Best wishes, hope its not too hot for you. Regards. Peter
Hi Peter, It has been too hot for me, I have been cooking trying to do work with my bees, I do appreciate you following and commenting, kind regards John.
Thanks John .. queen excluders are definitely a personal opinion in the beekeeping community .. my experience of them has always been a positive one, where I've used them for honey supers to finding ninja queen's in double brood boxes. My all time favourite thing to see in a hive apart from her majesty is the teddy bear drones. I have only a few colonies (all deeps) at the minute but was always taught to put in 1x medium frame into each colony to let them pull down drone cells for queenie to lay in. So far it's been an invaluable thing for me ensuring well mated queen's when I need them. Love the videos as always John and thanks for your invaluable opinion.
Hi Alvin, I have put the odd super frame into a deep brood boxes for this but will take your advice and put one in each deep I also sometimes put drone wax foundation in brood boxes I think I will do a video on this, thanks for your kind and helpful comments over many videos John.
I was taught the same, using a shallow frame for drones. When varroa came along it was practice to remove the drone brood, but I leave the drone brood there, now as a valuable resource.
@@beehinde I believe there has been poorly mated queens due to lack of drones in the sky for some years now. I have been using drone foundation for years I love drones thanks again
Hi John
Yes John i have the same issue there is masses of brood and stores in the brood box there has been a super on for the last two week and they havnt touched it which i found strange as there has been plenty of foreging going on.
Im goi g to try your method next inspection.
I have the plastic quenn excluders but plan to change then to the framed type ASAP.
Very informative video and it has given me some good ideas and guidance, Cheers for that it is most appreciated.
Hi Mike,
I like the one sided wooden frame queen excluders as they have bee space but some have bee space both sides and they build brace comb on one side because there is already bee space under the frames, One of my comments stated its to do with my carniolan subspecies of a weston honey bee do you know what stain of bees you have, great beekeeping always something new to learn, nice to hear from you mike , keep well to you and your family John.
@@johnbeemansaunders6567
Hi John
i have a strain of queen that originated from Holland. My assosiation bought some in to stock the apiary.
They are third generation from the original stock very calm and are building well.
I spoke the the guy i bought them from and he said that they will move up when they are ready.
However my instincts are tending to want to give them some assistance.
I might experiment with one colony to see how it goes.
What do you think?
Regards....
@@micla6221
Great to experiment , if it works it works, the bees were not going into my super but did after removing the q excluder , we are all different when it comes to looking after bees, thats is a good thing in my mind,
See you sometime Mike,
I think the red pollen is White Horsechestnut John. It's flowering at the mo near my apiary and I have noticed it being brought back by my bees too. Think it's actually toxic in large quantities to bees, or at least that's what I have read!
Thanks for the informative information I have looked on pollen charts for that answer and never found it so thanks a new thing learned today great, John
After many conversations with over 15 trusted beekeepers, I've come to the conclusion that queen excluders, most definitely reduce the number of bees that will move upwards to a super. I've also learned that they will hinder how fast supers are filled up with honey--that is for you and this I know from experience. Yet something else to consider is, queen exculders also stress bees, and perhaps even damage their wing. With all that said, I understand if they must be used. I believe it's a personal choice. I'm not using them next year and will see the difference.
Hi Brad, there are so many controversial things with beekeeping, some do not like using smoke , some people use those horrible thick gloves made of leather, some are treatment free beekeeping some do not use queen excluders, some are against national hives, some beekeepers use flow hives, some use plastic foundation, I am totally against flow hives myself because of the plastic in them, I do not think it is natural for bees to have plastic in the hive , also plastic is bad for the planet, I guess the answer to it all is it would be better if humans left bees to fend for themselves whatever we do to them is not really natural, as you say we all have a personal choice, hope you didn’t think I’m having a rant, I’m just putting a point of view across, hope you are keeping well with all this virus about , happy beekeeping for 2021, hope it all goes well for you, John and Lin
Really enjoyed that episode John. We use the plastic excluders and too have found that sometimes the ladies don’t like them. I’ve kept bees for some yrs now and love learning for you ‘Good ole Boys’.
Can you elaborate a little on how you build up a colony after swam management whether it be splits or artificial swarm or Padgen etc. So many videos on development of colonies but few discuss the combining and building up 5he colonies after. I did enjoy your newspaper method video tho.
Hi Marcus, I was looking to do a video on this very thing, I think it should be quite soon, But there are so many different beekeeper out there all seem to have their own way of doing things, I like to add capped brood from a strong colony when building up a nuc, and give them pollen sub,and syrup 2 to 1 hopefully the video will be out soon , thanks for commenting John.
Thats looking good and they were getting loud by the end john
Hello again John. Have you heard any from other beekeepers that queen excluders actually hurt the bee's wings? Do you use them?
Hi Brad, there is evidence that this can occur as you say, I do not always use excluders but when I do I minimise the effect of Queen excluders, by using wood framed excluders with smooth tubular runs These have bottom bee space, As seen in my video. I haven’t noticed any wings that are damaged on the bees The plastic ones have no bee space and can have sharp corners to the plastic there are also queen excluders out there that are stamped out of one sheet of metal with slots cut out, these tend to have sharp edges in my opinion. There is a saying ask five beekeepers a question and you will get six different answers, beekeeping can be controversial in lots of ways. I always look at how I am a beekeeper and what I do, I guess over the years I involved my own way of doing things that I feel comfortable with, without causing too much stress to my lovely bees good question from you though, always worth thinking about what we are doing. Kind regards john
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 Thanks John. Can you clarify what "bottom bee space" means? Please. I've been told to only use the metal one made by mannLake. His seem to be medical grade cut and are smooth and cut with precision. I started asked this question because I just ordered a Flow Hive 2. And I have learned, plan and simply, queen excluders restrict bee. NO WAY AROUND it. Studies show that a large portion of the bees won't even go through them. I'm guessing that I will just have to learn from experience. And if I don't use one and the queen starts laying in my Flow Super, I will be forced to use one. (last question. Have you heard of or seen the excluders that are made out of 100% wood?) Wonder if they would work better. Just some question to throw in the air. God bless you.
@@bradgoliphant Sounds like you are researching well, there are two types of Bee space, top bee space and bottom bee space , most beekeepers seem to have bottom bee space that is the space for the bees to walk about under the honey or brood frame , when you put one box on top of another you do not crush bees, some beekeepers have there bee space on top so there is a drop from the edge of the top of the bee box to where the bees are walking about. On top of the frames , I have found there is a lot of strong opinions regarding beekeeping, but as you say through experience I think we will all find the best way to suit us, I have no experience with flow hives , hope you get on well with yours, have you seen that excellent beekeeper on RUclips who has flow hives, called, The way to bee , Fredrick Dunn , i’m pretty sure he uses queen excluders , John
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 Thank you John for being so helpful. And Ya, I know Frederick Dunn. I speak with him all the time. He does NOT use the queen excluders actually. This is what set up all these questions. He has a video saying this: That if you have a least a double-deep hive (two deep hive boxes) of room for the queen and her brood, 9 times out of 10, she will not move up any higher---except in winter months. He also teaches that queen excluders both wear the bees down, and limit honey production, as well as, over 30% of the worker bees never pass through it as well. So I guess I've made up my mind NOT to use one, and if I get the queen laying up in my Flow Hive Super Frames, so be it.
I'm grateful for you. I can tell by your videos your a kind and sweet man. I''m grateful having met you. Brad
@@bradgoliphant thanks Brad, I intend to have a top bar hive with no green excluders, I guess we are both looking forward to next year when we can enjoy working with our bees, hope all goes well with your flow hive. Kind regards john
Please tell me how do you deal with the eggs in the super
Hi Stuart, I did say at the end of the video, maybe you mist it, I replace the queen excluder in 5 days with the queen in the bottom box, then the eggs emerge after 21 days, then the bees backfill the empty cells with honey. hope that helps John.
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 yeah I missed that bit thankyou
In the first minute before you mentioned Carnies, I thought that was what you were going to say. What you have done was standard practice for that sub species. Although it is not always the case.
Hi thanks for your very informative comment, The same queen and the same hive last year did fill two supers with the queen excluder in but i took it out after the first was filled, all my other hives have local queens, with queen excluders in them no problem thanks again John.
Just going through the Spring Edition of the Welsh Beekeeper, Mark Winston's book The Biology of the Honeybee. Carnies prefer a cavity of 60L, AMM 40L, Italian 30L and tropical races 20L or less
beehinde thanks that has help me I think a put that book on my list John
John Bee Man Saunders l
How long until the delicious honey is ready John?
Hi Lee, nice to hear from you, about three or 4 weeks for the spring crop he he
@@johnbeemansaunders6567 OK. hope your keeping well, see you soon after the lockdown.
Hi John a question on queens if I may, I have a hive that I assumed had gone queenless over winter (no eggs and no sign of a queen) so I gave them a frame from another hive with a queen cell on it. I went to inspect a couple of days ago and the cell had hatched then I found a ball of bees on a separate frame and discovered a beautiful queen being attacked, I rescued her and went through the hive but could not find another queen so I caged her with a candy stopper hoping they would accept her. It took them 2 days to eat their way in but on inspection yesterday there was no sign of her then I noticed a much smaller queen walking across my glove so I put her back in and closed the hive up. The smaller one may be the original queen that I have missed or may be a virgin that has emerged but I don’t know where the other queen could have come from I don’t have any other hive producing queens at the moment so the big question is how long should I leave them before deciding the queen is no good and dispatching her?
Thanks
Clive
Hi Clive, how interesting, this sounds just the sort of thing that happens to at times, beekeeping is not always straightforward, I find very often there is some decision to make with my bees its not always right or wrong, I would leave her to see what egg laying patton she has, 4 or 5 weeks then decide but maybe she will not make it through the winter even with a good egg laying patton, maybe the bees will create a supersedure cell, not been very helpful sorry, hope all goes well with this hive of yours kind regards John.
John Bee Man Saunders Hi John there are no eggs so far this season I’ve kept them going with a couple of frames of capped brood from strong hives, the bees also act as if they’re queenless very jittery on the frames and milling around the entrance before take off.
@@cliveharrison733 Yes milling around before take off good sign no mated queen, maybe eggs will appear soon, if the queen gets mated okay im sure you will sort it somehow john.