Queen excluders don't always work do they?

[Kris^]

My first attempt at raising queens in fresh comb (Miller method) went down in flames.

1)  I'm POSITIVE the marked queen was in the bottom box when I put the queen excluder on.  I found her on a frame and put that frame in the bottom box before I put the excluder on.

2)  I'm CERTAIN the excluder was put on square, and since it's rarely been used, there weren't any bent wires or anything.

2)  I'm CONFIDENT the upper box was queenless after I slid the cloake board panel in, because they were roaring loudly when I opened it up a day later to put the frame with new brood in.  A day later (Friday) I pulled the panel out

So when I opened the box up to check the brood frame, what was the first thing I saw on it?  My marked queen.  Laying eggs in the comb, which the bees had re-drawn out beyond my cut-outs to fill the frame almost completely.  All sign of my previous day-old larvae was gone.

This queen is an odd one.  I got her with a package last year, and she is long and slim, not plump at all.  I guess I should have figured she'd be able to move through the excluder when she wanted to.  But she's been a prolific queen; that first-year hive gave me 55 lbs of honey last August.  And it wintered well with and is now at 2 boxes full of bees, which is why I chose to use it for my finishing hive.

So I split the hive instead.  Moved the queen off the frame with new eggs and put her in the walkaway.  I'm POSITIVE she's in there.        The frame with new eggs when into the now-queenless cutdown; there's already lots of brood in the day 1 & 2 stage in there.  

At least I can get some queen cells from the cutdown to make up nucs in about a week and a half.  All the best laid plans . . .

-- Kris

[Michael Bush]

>So when I opened the box up to check the brood frame, what was the first thing I saw on it? My marked queen. Laying eggs in the comb, which the bees had re-drawn out beyond my cut-outs to fill the frame almost completely. All sign of my previous day-old larvae was gone.

Usually they don't bother going through an excluder, but smoke will often drive them through one.

>This queen is an odd one. I got her with a package last year, and she is long and slim, not plump at all. I guess I should have figured she'd be able to move through the excluder when she wanted to. But she's been a prolific queen; that first-year hive gave me 55 lbs of honey last August. And it wintered well with and is now at 2 boxes full of bees, which is why I chose to use it for my finishing hive.

So try a QUENLESS starter finisher and you won't have this proboem.  

>All the best laid plans . . .

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley --Robert Burns excerpt from "To a Mouse"

And of beekeepers...

[Kris^]

Well, that's kinda why I made the split, and put the frame with the eggs in the cutdown.  There are 7 or 8 likely queen cells on it now, not yet capped.  That would put them at 6 or 7 days, wouldn't it?  The colony didn't choose to use the young brood on the other frames, but waited until the eggs hatched and used them.  I'll try to tranfer them to nucs next Thursday or Friday and see if they turn out alright.

-- Kris

[Michael Bush]

>The colony didn't choose to use the young brood on the other frames, but waited until the eggs hatched and used them.

They awlays start from larvae.  I have  never seen them start a queen cell from an egg.

[Jon McFadden]

Here's how I built my Cloake Board. I attached the excluder directly to it.
http://nordykebeefarm.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=20&PN=2
I am using the Nocot system with it. Today is 48 hours after grafting for me, so we'll see how we did.
The instructions were in the December 1993 Bee Culture magazine.
A blow by blow description is under the Nicot heading:
http://nordykebeefarm.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=6&PN=1

[Kris^]

This attempt has really gone down the tubes, I think.  (See my post mistakenly posted in the Equipment section).  I think I'll be trying again from scratch.  

-- Kris

[Apis629]

Just last weekend I found that my russian queen had somehow gotten through the excluder given there were a bunch of eggs in a honey super above the excluder.  I just smoked them back down, looked for bends (which there were none).