Queen Excluders

This is a selective barrier inside the beehive that allows worker bees but not queens and drones to traverse the barrier. It comes as a sheet of perforated metal or plastic or a wire grid in a frame. The openings of this sheet are limited to 0.163 inch (4.14 mm). This is used to limit queen's access to the honey supers. If the queen lays eggs in the honey supers and a brood develops, it is difficult to harvest a clean honey product and it brings difficulties in producing pure honey. Recommendation: This must be removed in the fall, otherwise the queen will not be able to move with the winter cluster and will die from exposure. The death of the queen in winter will doom the hive unless the beekeeper introduces a new queen in the spring.