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Date: | Mon, 6 Apr 2015 11:40:19 -0400 |
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We use excluders to speed up finding queens, and that's about it - IF we are in MT.
In our climate, I learned early on not to have excluders on in cool/cold weather - the clusters often starve rather than pass through an excluder to honey above, even if the frames are all aligned, etc.
In coastal areas of U.S., where major nectar and pollen sources come fast and furious in the spring, there is little nectar for extended periods in the summer/fall. One almost has to use excluders to keep the queen from filling up boxes with offspring that can't be fed and/or the bees will consume the most of the honey crop before the next year.
Large scale beekeeping operations often put them on before harvesting to keep from hauling brood home in the boxes pulled for extraction.
But, regardless of the type of excluder, rimmed, rimless, plastic, wire, we've seen in our research that there is always a percentage of queens who manage to slip through, and we have documented slow downs of workers moving through. So, we generally don't use excluders when there's a honey flow on.
J.J. Bromenshenk
Bee Alert
Missoula, Mt
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