On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Stan Sandler wrote:   Donald you mentioned that you
used a bee blower in some years without queen  excluders.  Did you find
that some queens were lost in the blowing?
 
 Hi Stan!
 
I am sure we did lose some queens in the years when we were not using
excluders. It did not seem to cause serious problems, and it may even have
had a good side. The colony would normally raise a new queen itself and we
have always found that new queens winter better and produce better in the
next year.
 
The loss can be minimized by taking a quick look at the combs. If they are
completely capped over there is not much chance of the queen being there.
Since at that time we harvested all the combs at once late in the year the
top boxes seldom contained brood and were usually capped. Queen excluders
are a real plus in our operation and enable us to harvest combs early in
the season which are only partially capped. They are easy to uncap and can
be used a second time which reduces the equipment cost and the storage
required.
 
Best regards,
 
 
Donald Aitken
11710-129 Street
Edmonton Alberta Canada
T5M 0Y7