Hi All

No... I have not had a 'Senior Moment'... Drone Excluder is like a wire
queen excluder, but has wider spaces between the wires which allows worker
bees and queens to pass unhindered, but the drone's thoraces are too large
to pass.

Those of you that raise drones deliberately for insemination purposes can
benefit by trapping the drones on the comb that they were hatched from.

The method is described in John Atkinson's book 'Background to Bee
Breeding'.

The method requires framed grids made from 'drone excluder' to be fitted to
the faces of the drone combs. So that  the drones trapped behind the
excluders are all of similar age and development.

I am organising the manufacture of a batch of drone excluder for a breeding
project  at the Leicershire and Rutland BKA in the UK. The grid will have a
gap width in the region of 5.2 mm (normal QE= 4.3 mm). The grids will be 421
mm x 441 mm and can be cut using a hacksaw or a Dremel cutter disc, to suit
the size of frame that you are using.

If any of you would like to take advantage of this production run... The
quantity can be increased with a resulting cost saving for all concerned.
The cost cannot be finalised until the batch size is known, but it is
envisaged that it will be less than £10 ($16) per grid of the size stated
and could be as low as £5 ($8) Obviously carriage costs would be additional.

This is being organised on a non profit making basis, but time is short and
if you require some of this material you should contact me quickly
[log in to unmask]


Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman

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