queen excluder on front entrance?

[ibeecanadian]

 ive had this idea for a while now. lets say for whatever emergency comes up that your not able to clean your hive of queen cells during the swarm season for a two week period. or you wish to get rid of a few drones some evening when they leave the hive for their daily flight. or, say you have italian bee's and your fellow beekeeper down the road has cocasian bee's (or vice versa) and you dont want one of his queens geting into one of your hives. would it make sence to use a queen excluder type of contraption over the entrance? ive never seen such a thing, but it kinda makes sence, or does it?

[Finman]

I have keeped bees 42 years. When I started, it was very usual way to catch a swarm. There were many technical system how you can make it.

Very old trick I can say.

1) it prevents honey flow to the hive

2) It do not prevent sawarming

3) The first thing it to get a race which is slow to swarm

I cut a wing fom queen. So bees cannot fly away. Often they do with new queen.

The worst thing - when hive is going swarm-  is that  queen stops egg laying. If you prolong that stop, after 1 month your hive has less honey collectors. During that time about 3-4 month the hive is mentally uside down.

[Beth Kirkley]

say you have italian bee's and your fellow beekeeper down the road has cocasian bee's (or vice versa) and you dont want one of his queens geting into one of your hives

What you are saying wouldn't help the problem above. The queen has to take her mating flight. Unless you bought a mated queen. But if you didn't get a mated queen, she wouldn't be able to get out for the virgin flight. Or say the bees raised a new queen, and she killed the old queen, then the new queen needs her mating flight.

Just a small thought. But it's not a dumb question....I've wondered the same thing. But clipping a wing is probably a better solution.

Beth

[Robo]

click image for larger view

Kelley used to sell these.  They also had a double high one that had bee escapes between the two levels and you could use it to trap queens/drones.

They are about as efficient as toll booths on an interstate.

[ibeecanadian]

very true, i see everyones point. i guess aswell if the drones are stuck in the hive they would make quiet a mess, unable to do their buisness. but if you wanted to get rid of some drones would it not be a good idea to put it on the front when they are on their early evening flight circling the hives? im just picturing leaving it on for a day or two.... if you didnt need drones in every hive.

[Anonymous]

very true, i see everyones point. i guess aswell if the drones are stuck in the hive they would make quiet a mess, unable to do their buisness. but if you wanted to get rid of some drones would it not be a good idea to put it on the front when they are on their early evening flight circling the hives? im just picturing leaving it on for a day or two.... if you didnt need drones in every hive.

I guess I don't understand your desire to get rid of the drones.  Are you assuming that the only purpose of a drone is to mate with virgin queens and if you have no queens to mate you don't need the drones?  A healthy colony consists of a certain amount of drones.  If you eradicate the drones below the desired number, the colony will raise more.  Why not let them control the drone population and put there efforts into raising workers and not replacing the drones you decided they didn't need.

[ibeecanadian]

i guess you learn something new every day. i didnt know that if the drones are below normal numbers they would be replaced. makes sence now that i think about it. i will leave it to the bee's. thanks for the info.