Editing Queen excluder (section)

== Purpose ==
[[File:Queen rearing.JPG|thumb|left|I. Ferman rearing queens using excluders, [[Mikveh Israel]] apiary, 1964]]
The intent of the queen excluder is to limit the queen's access to the [[honey super]]s. If the queen lays eggs in the honey supers and a brood develops in them, it is difficult to harvest clean honey. It makes fall management more difficult. Queen excluders are removed in the [[autumn]]; otherwise, the queen would not be able to move with the [[winter cluster]] and would die from [[hypothermia|exposure]]. A replacement queen can be difficult to introduce because the bees will not be accustomed to the new queen's [[pheromone]]s. New queens can be killed by the hive. Therefore, the death of a queen in winter is dangerous for a hive and can be expensive for a [[beekeeper]].

Queen excluders are used with some queen breeding methods, especially as a way to allow queen cells to be built in the same hive with an existing queen, or as a way to house multiple queens in the same hive.<ref>{{cite book|last=Doolittle|first=G.M.|title=Scientific Queen-rearing as Practically Applied; Being a Method by which the Best of Queen-Bees are Reared in Perfect Accord with Nature's Ways|year=1889|publisher=Thomas G. Newman & Son|location=Chicago|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924003263724}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2017}}