How important is it to put queen excluder across the entrance once she's laying? The wee Apidea ones are a squeeze for my bees and fairly sharp so I'm reluctant to use them. Could cut a few plastic ones?
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How important is it to put queen excluder across the entrance once she's laying? The wee Apidea ones are a squeeze for my bees and fairly sharp so I'm reluctant to use them. Could cut a few plastic ones?
Cut a few of the bigger plastic ones as they do try and abscond.
Once they decide to abscond, you need to get the queen out asap as they will keep trying irrespective of the excluder and I find they eventually kill the queen. Not sure why but you find the queen dead on the floor of the apidea.
the other thing you can do for a few days is cage the queen and put the cage in the feed compartment.
Apideas are very prone to absconding so better with the excluder on. Once you see eggs the queen will not leave on another mating flight.