No excluder, now what?

[Pi]

I'm going to go excluderless on my two hives this year, and I want to know what to expect.  Am I going to have a honey harvest with a bunch of larva floating on top?  Or will the bees keep the bood and honey on separate frames?  Any other suggestions or observations?

[Understudy]

What is the structure of your hives? (how many deeps, mediums, shallows)

The bees tend to have brood frames near the center of the hive the corners of the frames may have honey in them.

Honey can be on outside frames of of brood boxes. I tend to leave that in place.

What happens in mine is that pattern of brood goes in. If I add another box, sometimes the very bottom of the frame may be the top of the brood pattern. It isn't many and they will get strained out. No effect on the honey. The added boxes will during flow become frames of honey. You can add another one or pull one when it is full and replace it with another.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[sean]

when i went to do my extraction recently almost all frames  had both honey and brood. I was advised that as long as the brood was sealed i could extract and they would be ok. it was tedious but i had to go through and inspect the frames for open brood/eggs leave those and take the ones with just sealed brood. Seriously thought about the excluder then. After a while i realized that had i put on an excluder all  my bees would have swarmed as the queen would have had no where to lay.

[Understudy]

As Michael Bush has said (not an exact quote): The bees know what they are doing.

If they are laying brood there it is because they need or want to. If they fill it throw another on top. If they fill that throw one more. Then see what happens because the bees are going to put the brood where they need to and the honey where they need to. And if you see two or three or more boxes full of brood. Don't get upset. Throw party you have a queen that is fabulous. She will make lots of honey gathering bees. You just have to understand what the bees needs are. You have 2, 3 or 4 brood boxes then you may need to let them have it and then add the supers for honey.

And then send me all the queen cells you get from that hive.  :-D


Sincerely,
Brendhan

[sean]

had to take off the honey. Should have done an extraction in december. I delayed someone lit a fire that gt out of control burnt down almost all the vegetation around and then we went into a drought period. So they consumed most of the honey i was planning to extract. Started feeding stuff started growing, the rain came they started storing nectar and the queens went into overdrive. Needless to say i was/am  elated. (need to have a talk with her majesties though, tell them to "hold it down a tuups"

[Scadsobees]

The queen won't generally cross a frame of honey to lay worker brood.  She will to lay drone brood.

So if you have brood in the supers with honey, put all of the brood in one, and honey in the other, and then put the honey above.  As the brood hatches they will start filling the cells with honey.

I haven't used excluders, and they will usually start out in the super, raise brood there, and then as they move down and start storing in the spring they will fill it up with honey as the brood hatches, and then I can safely put supers on.

Some people won't extract out of any comb that has had brood raised in it(dark comb), but I do and don't have a problem with it.

If you have drone comb from foundationless frames in the supers, you will need to keep an eye on that.

Rick

[Mici]

correct me if i'm wrong, but i think this is how a hive without a queen excludor should look like, try to imagine the frames and how much of the honey frames would be "infested" with brood.

[Michael Bush]

>I'm going to go excluderless on my two hives this year, and I want to know what to expect.  Am I going to have a honey harvest with a bunch of larva floating on top?

No.  If you let them have enough drone comb in the brood nest I would not expect any brood in the supers unless the entire brood nest has expanded that far.

> Or will the bees keep the bood and honey on separate frames?

The bees want a consolidated brood nest.  They do not want brood scattered everywhere.

>  Any other suggestions or observations?

If it worries you a lot, use 7/11 foundation (available from Walter T. Kelley) in the supers and the queen will not like to lay in it.

[Understudy]

Michael,
I found the 7/11 foundation.
http://go.netgrab.com/secure/kelleystore/asp/product.asp?product=114

But it doesn't have much of a description. What is so special about it. How does it work?

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[MrILoveTheAnts]

I think it just has smaller cells that are more natural to those you'd find in a wild hive of bees. Brood cells tend to get capped a day sooner and hatch a day sooner plus you can fit more cells on a frame. So the queen can fit more brood on a frame.
This also means the bees are making more cells with less wax so I don't think I'd use them where honey would be stored.

[Mici]

I think it just has smaller cells that are more natural to those you'd find in a wild hive of bees. Brood cells tend to get capped a day sooner and hatch a day sooner plus you can fit more cells on a frame. So the queen can fit more brood on a frame.
This also means the bees are making more cells with less wax so I don't think I'd use them where honey would be stored.

i don't understand a word you said.
SC foundation is just as un-natural as let's say normal cell ( 5,2-5,4mm). the most natural cells are those that are built completely by bees, that is-no foundation! they build a variety of cell sizes, that's natural, SC isn't.
if they make smaller cells, they do use less wax for the same number of cells, but when storing honey-when the number is not important, they use much less wax for the same volume, that's why one would want to use this big foundation, bees anyway build larger cells in the honey storage area. so if you force them to make large cells you force them to only store honey in them.

[MrILoveTheAnts]

The wax foundation has a smaller pentagon print on it so the bees make smaller cells and more of them fit on the frame. With smaller cells the brood nest doesn't need to take up so much space. To throw numbers out there the queen would be laying 4000 eggs on a frame instead of 3500.

[EDIT] Right I wouldn't trust these for storing honey in them. I would imagen smaller cells would have thinner cell walls for each of them and collapse easier, or maybe even melt quicker. 
Also I was told otherwise about the size of wild hive cells.

[czech bee]

Hi, here we use mostly for suppers less frames. Bees makes cells deeper and queen does not want to lay eggs into it. Langtroth hive has in suppers only 9 frames. We also use quite often only suppers for the whole hive, some others use mediums for brood. If the frames are smaler, queen also does not want to lay eggs (dadant idea).
Lumir

[Michael Bush]

7/11 is 5.7mm cells which the queen does not like to lay in because it's too large for workers and too small for drones.

[Understudy]

I may have to try that 7/11 frame. Michael have you used any?
What have the results been?
Are there any issues with regressed or non regressed bees?


Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Michael Bush]

>I may have to try that 7/11 frame.

It's not in a frame.  It only comes in thin surplus and in medium and shallow.

> Michael have you used any?

I used it for about 24 years with good results.  Occasionally (when using worker brood in the brood nest and culling drone brood) I've had the queen lay a small patch of drones in the 7/11.

>Are there any issues with regressed or non regressed bees?

I've never used in with the non regressed bees, but I can't foresee any problems with it.