Why Beekeepers Are Removing Queen Excluders: The Production Data

A commercial beekeeper pulls 25 supers for extraction. Eight to ten frames show brood. Those frames get set aside, recycled back into hives. The remaining 240-ish frames go through extraction cleanly, producing honey uncontaminated by cocoon residue or pollen. His operation runs 80-100 hives across multiple yards. He doesn't use queen excluders at all.

Another operation runs excluders on every hive. Workers move freely through the grid, filling supers above the barrier. The queen stays confined to known brood boxes. Extraction involves zero sorting - every frame above the excluder contains only honey. Time savings at extraction multiplied across hundreds of hives represents significant labor cost reduction. They wouldn't consider removing excluders.

Both operations work. Both produce comparable honey yields. Both beekeepers are experienced, successful, and completely convinced their approach is correct. The queen excluder debate isn't new, but recent research has added actual data to what was previously all anecdote and strongly held opinions. The findings complicate rather than settle the argument.

A 2024 study tracked 64 honeybee colonies across eight apiaries in Germany for four years. Half used queen excluders, half didn't. Researchers measured colony dynamics, honey production, and brood patterns. The result: no significant difference in any measured parameter. Excluders didn't reduce honey yield. They didn't affect brood production. They didn't change colony development patterns in statistically meaningful ways.

If excluders don't reduce production, why do so many beekeepers insist they do? If they don't affect colony dynamics, why does the equipment feel like it makes such a difference in hive management? The gap between measured outcomes and beekeeper experience suggests something interesting about what actually matters in beekeeping operations.

What Queen Excluders Actually Do

A queen excluder is a grid with openings sized at 4.1-4.2mm. Worker bees squeeze through. Queens, being larger, cannot. Drones definitely cannot - they're bigger than queens. The device creates a physical barrier separating brood rearing areas from honey storage areas, which doesn't happen in natural colonies where bees integrate brood and honey storage across the same combs.

The invention dates to roughly 1890, with several beekeepers in different countries developing similar devices independently. This parallel development suggests they were solving a genuine problem that emerged with movable-frame hives and commercial extraction equipment. When you extract honey by spinning frames in a centrifuge, finding brood mixed with honey creates real issues. Larvae fly out. Cocoons damage extractors. The resulting honey contains debris. Excluders solve this by guaranteeing that frames above a certain point contain only honey.

In feral colonies living in tree cavities, bees store honey primarily above and alongside the brood nest. The queen lays eggs in a roughly spherical pattern, with honey stored in an arc above and to the sides. As the colony expands vertically, the brood nest moves upward following available space and temperature patterns. Honey remains concentrated in certain areas, but the integration is natural rather than mechanically enforced.

Managed hives with excluders create artificial separation. The queen gets confined to one or two boxes. Worker population in those boxes stays high because brood requires constant attention. The population density above the excluder runs lower - only foragers and house bees doing honey processing work. Some beekeepers argue this separation creates inefficiency. Others argue it creates better organization.

The "honey excluder" nickname emerged from beekeepers who observed that workers seemed reluctant to move through excluders into empty supers. When you add a super of foundation above an excluder, workers often delay drawing out that foundation compared to supers added without excluders. This hesitation costs time during critical nectar flows. The foundation doesn't get drawn, workers can't store incoming nectar, and the nectar flow gets partially wasted.

Several theories explain this hesitation. Workers might detect that passing through the excluder takes extra effort - they have to squeeze through openings barely large enough for their bodies. Repeated passages might wear on workers or signal that the area beyond the excluder isn't prime real estate. Alternatively, pheromone gradients might play a role. Queen pheromone doesn't pass through excluders as readily as through open frames, so the area above the excluder reads as "distant from queen" which might discourage some activities.

The 2024 Research Findings

The German study published in Apidologie provided the first rigorous scientific examination of excluder effects on colony dynamics. Previous evidence consisted entirely of anecdotal reports - "my colonies produce more without excluders" versus "I get better yields with excluders" - with no controlled comparison.

Researchers worked with eight beekeeping operations practicing biodynamic management. Each operation maintained eight colonies, with four using excluders and four going without. The colonies were managed identically except for excluder presence. Measurements included brood area, bee population, honey production, and seasonal development patterns over a complete season.

Results showed no statistically significant differences between treatments. Colonies with excluders produced equivalent honey to colonies without. Brood production matched between groups. Population development followed similar curves. The equipment that beekeepers argue about passionately appeared to make no measurable difference in colony outcomes.

Several caveats apply. The study occurred in one region (Germany) during one season (2020). Weather patterns, forage availability, and colony genetics all potentially influence how excluders affect outcomes. The biodynamic management approach might differ from conventional practices in ways that affected results. Sample size of 64 colonies provides statistical power but isn't enormous. Regional variation could exist that this study didn't capture.

Still, the findings matter because they contradict widespread beekeeper beliefs. Many experienced beekeepers report clear productivity differences based on excluder use. The research suggests those differences either don't exist, result from confounding factors the beekeepers aren't controlling for, or manifest in ways the study didn't measure. All three possibilities raise interesting questions about what drives beekeeping management decisions.

One telling detail: the research team developed a decision-making tool (Pugh matrix) to help beekeepers evaluate whether excluders suited their specific operations. Even after finding no statistical difference in outcomes, they acknowledged that individual circumstances might favor one approach over another. The decision depends on factors beyond simple honey production numbers.

Why The Production Numbers Don't Match Experience

Beekeepers who remove excluders often report increased honey yields. This experience feels real to them. They track their production, notice changes, and conclude that excluders were limiting output. If the research shows no effect, what explains this perception?

Timing provides one explanation. Beekeepers typically remove excluders when making other management changes. Maybe they're switching to all-medium boxes for better handling. Maybe they're changing feeding practices. Maybe they're trying different genetics. When multiple variables change simultaneously, attributing outcomes to any single change becomes unreliable.

Confirmation bias amplifies perceived effects. Once a beekeeper decides excluders limit production, they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting that belief. A good honey year becomes proof that removing excluders worked. A bad year gets attributed to weather or other factors. The beekeeper isn't being dishonest - humans naturally see patterns supporting their expectations.

The queen crossing honey provides another angle. Some beekeepers report that queens typically don't cross honey bands, making excluders unnecessary. They manage brood space so the queen has a thick honey arc above the brood nest. The queen naturally stays below that honey line, and excluders become redundant equipment. For these beekeepers, removing excluders doesn't change actual colony function because the queen wasn't going to move up anyway.

Others report the opposite - queens regularly cross honey and lay eggs in supers when given the opportunity. The difference might involve genetics, with some queen lines showing stronger tendency to stay in brood areas while others range more freely. Or it might involve hive configuration, forage timing, or factors nobody's identified. Either way, beekeeper experience varies enough that blanket statements about whether excluders matter don't hold across all situations.

The extraction time savings represents a real, measurable benefit that the German study didn't quantify. Separating brood frames from honey frames during extraction takes time. For hobbyists extracting once per season, the extra few minutes doesn't matter. For operations extracting hundreds of frames regularly, those minutes compound into hours. Labor cost is real cost. If excluders save significant extraction time without reducing honey production, they provide value even if they don't increase yield.

What Actually Happens Without Excluders

Remove the excluder and the queen can theoretically access the entire hive. In practice, her movement depends on multiple factors. Strong colonies with good forage often maintain clear separation naturally. The queen stays in brood boxes because that's where workers are tending brood, and she follows worker activity. The areas above fill with honey because workers store nectar where space exists.

Weak colonies or those experiencing forage gaps show different patterns. If the brood chamber starts filling with honey during a strong flow, the queen might move upward seeking empty cells. If workers aren't expanding the brood nest at the same rate eggs are being laid, congestion in the lower box encourages the queen to explore above. When she finds empty cells in supers, she lays eggs there.

The result is scattered brood in honey supers. Not every frame, not every time, but enough to create management complications. During extraction you have to check every frame, pulling aside any with brood. Those frames go back into hives rather than through the extractor. For operations extracting on tight schedules, this sorting process adds time that excluders would have eliminated.

Some beekeepers intentionally work without excluders but manage the issue through timing. They wait until late season to pull honey, after brood rearing has naturally declined. By September, queens are laying fewer eggs and colonies are transitioning to winter configuration. Any brood in supers has likely emerged, leaving clean honey. This approach works if your area has late flows and if you're not trying to extract during peak summer when brood is everywhere.

Others use the "honey barrier" approach. They manipulate frames so the queen has a thick band of honey (2+ inches) above the brood nest. Most queens won't cross this honey barrier to lay eggs in supers above it. This requires careful frame arrangement and monitoring to ensure the barrier stays intact. During strong flows when workers might consume that honey band, the natural barrier disappears and the queen can cross.

The occasional queen that makes it through excluders complicates the story further. Beekeepers report finding queens above excluders despite the physical impossibility. Virgin queens, being smaller than mated queens, sometimes squeeze through the gaps. Worn excluders with slightly enlarged openings might allow passage. Some queens seem extraordinarily determined to explore and find ways through imperfections in the grid.

When a queen ends up above an excluder, brood appears in supers and the excluder hasn't prevented the problem it's meant to solve. Worse, if the beekeeper doesn't notice, the queen might get trapped there during extraction prep. Finding a queen on a super frame during extraction is the nightmare scenario - you've potentially killed or injured her, and now you need to figure out whether the colony below is queenless.

The Equipment Considerations

Queen excluders come in several designs, each with different handling characteristics. Metal excluders with rigid wire grids last decades but cost more initially. They sit flat without sagging. The wire grids get propolized but clean relatively easily with a scraper. Weight becomes an issue - metal excluders are heavy enough that lifting boxes with excluders attached strains backs more than necessary.

Plastic excluders cost less and weigh less but have shorter lifespans. The plastic warps, especially in hot conditions. Molded plastic with square holes provides more surface area for workers to pass through compared to circular holes, theoretically reducing resistance. However, plastic excludes often don't sit as flat, creating gaps at edges where queens might pass.

The wooden-framed wire excluders occupy middle ground. The frame provides structural rigidity preventing warping. The wire grid allows easy cleaning. Weight runs higher than plastic but lower than solid metal sheets. These are often considered the best compromise, though they cost more than basic plastic models.

Different designs affect how readily bees pass through. Some beekeepers report that their bees refuse to work through certain excluder types but readily pass through others. This could be real - different hole sizes, spacing patterns, and materials might genuinely affect bee behavior. Or it could be confirmation bias again, with beekeepers interpreting normal variation in colony behavior as excluder effects.

The maintenance requirements vary by type. Metal excluders propolized thoroughly require significant scraping effort. Plastic excluders get propolized too but the propolis doesn't bond as strongly to smooth plastic surfaces. However, plastic excluders bend, and bent excluders create gaps or prevent proper seating. Wooden-framed models need periodic replacement as the wood degrades, though the wire grid itself lasts indefinitely.

One consistent complaint across all excluder types: they get stuck. Propolis bonds them to frame top bars or to the hive body above. Removing a stuck excluder risks crushing bees, damaging equipment, and killing more bees than the excluder saves through cleaner extraction. Some beekeepers specifically cite excluder removal difficulty as reason enough to abandon them entirely.

The Commercial Time Calculation

For commercial operations, excluder decisions ultimately come down to time economics. Every additional minute per hive multiplied across hundreds of hives multiplied across multiple inspection cycles per season adds up to real labor hours. Labor costs money. The question becomes whether excluders save more time than they cost.

Excluders save time during extraction. You don't sort frames. You don't find queens in supers. You don't cycle brood-contaminated frames back into hives. For operations extracting regularly throughout the season, these time savings are substantial. One commercial beekeeper estimates excluders save 3-5 minutes per hive during extraction prep and processing. Across 500 hives extracted three times per season, that's 37.5-62.5 hours saved annually.

But excluders cost time during installation, removal, and maintenance. Adding excluders in spring requires opening every hive. Removing them before winter (critical for queen survival) requires another complete yard visit. Cleaning propolized excluders takes time. Managing drone congestion when drones get trapped above excluders requires intervention. The time costs add back in.

The breakeven analysis depends on operation specifics. Large operations extracting frequently likely benefit from excluders because extraction time dominates total labor time. Smaller operations extracting once per season might not benefit enough to justify excluder costs and maintenance. Beekeepers whose extraction process already sorts frames by source or quality don't gain much from excluder-guaranteed clean frames.

Worker efficiency represents another variable. Experienced extracting crews work fast regardless of whether frames occasionally contain brood. They spot brood frames instantly and set them aside without breaking rhythm. For these crews, excluders save minimal time because sorting is already optimized. Newer workers or less systematic operations see bigger time savings from excluder-guaranteed clean frames.

The queen finding benefit has value that's hard to quantify in minutes. Knowing exactly where the queen is located speeds inspections when you need to find her for requeening, marking, or assessment. For operations marking queens as part of their management protocol, confining her to one or two boxes makes that process much faster. But operations that don't prioritize queen finding get zero value from this excluder benefit.

Regional and Seasonal Patterns

Some regions show stronger patterns of excluder use than others. Commercial operations in areas with long, sustained flows tend toward excluder use. The extended production season means multiple extraction cycles where time savings compound. Shorter-season regions with one main flow might not extract often enough for excluder benefits to exceed costs.

Climate affects excluder management. Northern operations that leave excluders on into fall risk queens dying if the excluder isn't removed before winter cluster formation. The cluster moves upward following warmth. If the queen can't pass through the excluder, she gets left behind in the cold lower box and dies from exposure. This is a known cause of winter queen loss that's entirely preventable by removing excluders in fall.

Southern operations sometimes face different excluder issues. Hot climates encourage bees to use upper parts of hives for brood because lower boxes get too hot. Queens naturally move upward seeking cooler temperatures. Excluders might fight this natural tendency, creating congestion in lower boxes when the queen wants to be higher. Some southern beekeepers report better outcomes without excluders, letting queens follow natural temperature preferences.

The forage pattern influences queen movement. Consistent flows keep workers building comb and storing honey in predictable patterns. The queen follows worker activity, and that activity naturally separates brood from honey. Erratic flows with strong pulses followed by dearths create different patterns. Workers might backfill brood areas with honey during strong flows, forcing the queen to move. Excluders prevent that movement but might worsen congestion problems.

Single-flow regions might benefit most from excluder-free management. If your entire honey crop comes from one three-week window, you can time extraction for after that flow when brood naturally moves downward. By the time you pull supers, the queen has already relocated to lower boxes preparing for fall. The frames above are clean honey without needing excluders to enforce separation.

Multiple-flow regions present more complexity. If you're managing spring, summer, and fall flows separately, pulling supers between flows increases the chance of finding brood in those supers without excluders. Each extraction cycle introduces another opportunity for the queen to have moved up. The probability compounds, making excluders more valuable as flow count increases.

What The Old Beekeepers Say

Beekeeping literature from before 1950 shows interesting patterns. Queen excluders were promoted as modern technology that improved hive management. Advertisements emphasized cleaner honey and easier extraction. However, many older references also note that skilled beekeepers didn't use excluders - they managed hive space and timing to achieve separation naturally.

This pattern continues today. Experienced beekeepers often work without excluders, relying on colony observation and frame manipulation to prevent brood in supers. Newer beekeepers get advised to use excluders until they develop the skills to manage without them. The implication is that excluders serve as training wheels - helpful initially but not necessary once you understand how colonies actually behave.

The counterargument is that experienced beekeepers developed their skills on exclude-free hives and can't fairly evaluate whether excluders would have worked better. Maybe they would have learned equally well with excluders in place. Maybe their conviction that excluders aren't necessary reflects the specific colonies and conditions they encountered rather than universal principles.

Some long-time beekeepers report changing positions over decades of practice. They started with excluders, removed them after becoming confident, then went back to excluders after losing queens or dealing with excessive brood contamination in honey. Or the reverse - they started with excluders, experimented without them, and never went back because results didn't meaningfully differ. The back-and-forth suggests that neither approach dominates clearly enough to settle the question through experience alone.

The commercial beekeepers who run operations at scale have largely settled on using excluders. Not all, but most large honey-producing operations employ excluders on production hives. This economic selection provides weak evidence that excluders benefit efficiency at scale. If they truly reduced production or added more costs than benefits, competitive commercial operations wouldn't use them. The fact that they persist in commercial use suggests they provide value in large-scale applications.

The Future Direction

The 2024 research finding that excluders don't affect production might gradually shift management practices toward less excluder use. If beekeepers internalize that excluders don't increase yields, the decision simplifies to whether the extraction time savings and queen location benefits justify the equipment cost and maintenance. For many operations, the answer might shift to "no."

However, change in beekeeping practices occurs slowly. Beekeepers invest in equipment that lasts decades. Someone who purchased fifty metal excluders isn't going to abandon them based on one study. They'll continue using excluders because they own them, and switching costs money even if the switch might improve efficiency. Equipment lock-in perpetuates practices even after better alternatives emerge.

Educational programs and extension services might adjust recommendations based on research findings. If excluders genuinely don't affect production, teaching new beekeepers to use them as standard practice might be adding unnecessary complexity. Alternatively, the time-saving benefits during extraction might justify continued recommendation despite lack of production effects. How the extension services interpret this research will influence whether new beekeepers adopt excluder use or skip it entirely.

Equipment manufacturers have financial incentive to promote excluder use - it's a product they sell. But the beekeeping equipment market is small enough that manufacturers mostly respond to demand rather than creating it. If beekeepers stop buying excluders, manufacturers will stop making them. The market appears stable currently, suggesting that demand continues regardless of research findings.

Regional beekeeping cultures influence adoption patterns independent of research. In areas where everyone uses excluders, new beekeepers naturally adopt them because that's what they observe. In areas where excluder use is mixed or rare, newcomers learn excluder-free management because that's what their mentors practice. These cultural patterns resist change more than individual beekeepers do.

The broader trend toward less-intensive hive management might decrease excluder use independent of production data. Beekeepers experimenting with lower intervention approaches often skip excluders as part of general equipment reduction. The philosophy is that bees managed themselves for millions of years without excluders and probably do better without human-imposed separations. Whether this philosophy actually improves outcomes is separate from whether it drives management decisions.

What It Actually Means

The queen excluder debate reveals how beekeeping decisions reflect values beyond simple optimization. If the research is correct and excluders don't affect honey production, then the decision isn't about maximizing yield. It's about choosing between different types of management effort - extraction time savings versus in-season maintenance requirements. Neither is objectively better. They represent different trade-offs.

For operations where labor is expensive and extraction happens frequently, excluders probably make sense. The time savings are real even if production effects aren't. For operations where extraction is infrequent or labor costs are low, excluders add complexity without enough benefit. Neither operation is wrong. They're optimizing for different constraints.

The psychological factor matters too. Beekeepers who believe excluders limit production will experience stress using them, even if the data shows otherwise. That stress affects decision quality and enjoyment of beekeeping. If removing excluders makes someone happier as a beekeeper, that's valuable even if it doesn't change honey yields. Beekeeping is partly hobby for most practitioners, and hobbies should be enjoyable.

Commercial operations face different psychology. They need economic efficiency more than enjoyment. If excluders save labor hours without reducing production, they use excluders regardless of whether it makes the work more satisfying. The business calculation overrides personal preference. This explains why commercial and hobby beekeepers often reach different conclusions about the same equipment.

The research finding that excluders don't reduce production removes one argument against them but doesn't resolve whether they're beneficial overall. They still add cost, require maintenance, create some management issues, and impose artificial separation that doesn't occur in natural colonies. Whether those negatives outweigh the extraction time savings depends entirely on the specific operation.

What remains clear is that successful beekeeping occurs both with and without queen excluders. The experienced beekeeper extracting 25 supers with 8-10 brood frames mixed in produces plenty of honey. The commercial operation running excluders on 500 hives produces comparable yields per hive. Both approaches work. The data now shows they work equivalently in terms of honey production. Everything else is preference, circumstance, and individual management style.