SourwoodGrace · North Carolina, US · Honey · Jul 17, 2026
Brood nest getting honey-bound under the excluder — bees won't move nectar up, what now?
North Carolina, 3rd year, 5 hives. My best colony is packing nectar into the brood boxes instead of the supers. Two supers on above a queen excluder — top one basically untouched, bottom one half worked — while downstairs the outer brood frames are solid capped honey and the nectar is creeping into the middle. The queen's laying area has shrunk to maybe 5 frames and I can see cells getting backfilled the moment brood emerges.
Sourwood is about to start here and I really don't want them to swarm or shut the queen down before it.
Do I just pull the excluder and hope she stays down? Move some capped brood frames up? Take the honey-bound frames out entirely? All of the above? First time I've had a colony flat refuse to work through an excluder like this.
#honey-bound#queen-excluder#backfilling#supering
▲ 13 votes💬 4 replies
4 replies
GeorgiaWes · Jul 17, 2026
Classic "honey excluder" situation and there's a reliable fix: bait the supers. Pull 2-3 of those capped honey frames out of the brood box and put them up in the super, replacing them below with drawn comb (or empty frames from that half-worked super). Once there's open honey above the excluder the bees commit to the space almost overnight. The nectar barrier under the excluder is what's stopping them, so break it from both sides.
SkaneBees · Jul 17, 2026
Funny timing — I posted about nearly the same situation this morning. Agree with baiting up. I'd add: make sure the excluder itself isn't part of the problem. A wonky or propolized excluder plus a strong flow will do exactly this. Some people run the first super without an excluder until it's got weight in it, then slide the excluder in after checking the queen's below.
BuckfastLinda · Jul 18, 2026
The no-excluder-at-first trick is what fixed this for me in Flanders. Also check ventilation — my worst backfilling year was in a hive with a tiny entrance in hot weather; they stored close to home because ripening nectar upstairs was too much work. Opened the entrance up and the supers started filling.
SourwoodGrace · Jul 18, 2026
Moved three capped frames up above the excluder yesterday evening and slotted drawn comb into the nest — checked just now and there are already bees festooned all over the moved frames and working the super. Fingers crossed for sourwood. Thanks y'all.