# Drone brood in honey super



## Usingmyrights (Jan 10, 2011)

First year as a beek. I was told by several people that queen excluders weren't neccessary and that the queen wouldn't cross the honey line. Well she did, in both hives. Its mostly drone brood in the supers though. She even went up into the 2nd super on the stronger hive. My question is, should I go ahead and put an excluder on, try to rearrange frames so that the top super is only honey or not worry about it. If I do an excluder would it be best to do an upper entance as well? I've heard people talk agaisnt it because its another place the bees have to guard, but I've also heard people talk agaisnt excluders because they'll slow honey production.


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## BRYAN (Jul 5, 2008)

Some others who have a lot more comercial experience can hopefully chime in here with their experience, but I have never used queen excluders. When I first started I picked some oldtimers brains as well as a lot of commercial producers on many issues. What I gleened from them on queen excluders was that they were labor intensive for big operators and cost in terms of production also. The beekeepers who did favor them were small operators who produced a specialty of comb honey for local markets, which require new white wax if it is to appealing to the customers. It is common for brood to be found in the honey supers when the excluders are not used, however during a heavy honey flow they are simply put on top of the empties that are added. As the bees emerge from these comb they are usually filled with honey. Many times in a heavy honey flow in my area, you must check often to make sure that they have enough space to store honey, lest they store it in the brood supers and become "honey bound" with not enough space for brood. These conditions can develope quickly and will prompt the bees to swarm, compounded by a drop in population in the remaining colony. This weaking, combined with large honey stores invites robbing. That will cost you that hive plus the collateral damage of others, because robbing once it starts is hard to control. It is not usual for me to find a frame or two with brood when removing honey, I just put them lower in the hive or in the empty that I am placing on the hive. I should note that a strong colony will need more than a couple supers, I have had some with up to five deep supers in the peak of the tallow flow (I use very few shallows, mostly med and deeps). If I were to use a queen excluder I would use an upper entrance, the colony should be strong enough to defend without any issues. Queen excluders are hard on the girls wings as well. I should point out that at the present I am a hobby beekeeper, I was growing my apiary when I had to leave for a year overseas. I had no one to really care for them and most were lost due to weakening from mites and SHB. In the course of my work for the last 20 years I inspect the bees for several large queen and package producers, as well as migratory pollinators that range in size from a few hundred colonies to one with 18000 colonies. I found that there are a lot of opinions out there and I have done a lot of generalizing here, but my experience has been that you can make honey without excluders. Whatever your goal, extracted honey or comb honey you will have to gear your mangement to that end and luckily there is a wealth of good references available. My favorite is the timeless "The Hive and the Honey Bee" by Dadent originally, edited and reprinted for a century. When in doubt, relax, do a some research and it will all work out.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I do not use queen excluders for the most part my self. It is indeed a myth that the queens will not cross honey as I have pictures of queens on open and capped honey.

If the honey is to be extracted or crushed and strained brood in honey supers pose no problem. It is also normaly in my expearince they queen laid up there because her brood boxes were full of honey when the honey supers were put on.

If I catch the queen in a honey super I will put her back down in the brood box and then add a queen excluder.

 Al


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## Usingmyrights (Jan 10, 2011)

Thanks for the replies. I didn't pull several frames when harvesting due to the amount of broad in them. These are two new hives thats why I only have two boxes on each. I picked up 4 more along with 100frames and foundation to add next year. I plan on doing a split next year and getting more boxes. I'll probably add a 2nd hive body to each of the established hives and continue in that fashion every year unless I run into a reason not to. As far as the brood in the honey supers, do you just uncap everything and strain it fo filter out the broad or try to uncap around the brood the best that you can.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I usally make sure the queen isn't still in the honey super and then I will use a queen excluder to make sure she doesn't return, allow the brood to hatch then extract and strain the honey as usall.

 Al


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