7 Best Queen Excluders for Beginner Beekeepers

You’ve watched your new colony thrive, filling brood boxes with a bustling population and the promise of a golden harvest. Now, as you prepare to add your first honey super, a critical question arises: how do you keep the queen from turning your liquid gold into her next nursery? This is where a queen excluder comes in, a simple tool that can make the difference between a clean harvest and a sticky, complicated mess.

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What Is a Queen Excluder & Do You Need One?

A queen excluder is essentially a gatekeeper for your beehive. It’s a flat screen, made of either metal wire or molded plastic, with openings that are large enough for worker bees to pass through but too small for the larger queen and drones. Placed between the brood boxes (where the queen lays eggs) and the honey supers (where you want bees to store surplus honey), its job is simple: keep the queen and her brood-rearing activities confined to the lower part of the hive. This ensures your honey supers contain only honey, making for a much cleaner and easier harvest.

The debate over whether you need an excluder is a classic one in beekeeping circles. Proponents argue that it’s an essential management tool, especially for beginners. It guarantees brood-free honey frames, which simplifies extraction and prevents the unpleasant surprise of finding larvae in your honeycomb. It also makes finding the queen easier, since you know which boxes she’s confined to.

On the other hand, some beekeepers, often called "excluder-less," believe the barrier is unnatural and can hinder hive productivity. They argue it can create a "honey-bound" brood nest if bees are reluctant to cross it, and that the edges can sometimes damage the wings of worker bees as they squeeze through thousands of times a day. Ultimately, using an excluder is a management choice. For a new beekeeper focused on a straightforward first harvest, the benefits of a clean super often outweigh the potential downsides.

Metal vs. Plastic: Choosing Your Excluder

Your first major decision will be choosing between metal and plastic. Metal excluders, typically made of zinc-plated or stainless steel wire, are the traditional standard. Their primary advantages are durability and rigidity. They won’t sag under their own weight or warp in the summer heat, ensuring the spacing remains precise for years. This precision is key; if the gaps are too large, a small queen can sneak through, and if they’re too small, they can impede worker traffic and pollen flow.

Plastic excluders are the modern, budget-friendly alternative. They are significantly cheaper, lighter, and their molded edges are often smoother, which some believe is gentler on bee wings. They are a fantastic low-risk option for a beekeeper who isn’t sure if they want to commit to using excluders long-term or needs to outfit multiple hives without a large upfront investment.

The tradeoff is longevity and performance under stress. Plastic can become brittle in cold weather and may warp on a hot day, especially if burr comb is built up between it and the frames below. For a hobbyist with one or two hives, a plastic excluder is a perfectly serviceable starting point. But if you view your equipment as a long-term investment, the resilience and unwavering precision of a quality metal excluder is hard to beat.

Mann Lake Metal Bound Excluder: Top Pick

If you want the undisputed, reliable workhorse that will last you for decades, the Mann Lake Metal Bound Excluder is it. This excluder features precisely spaced, electrically welded wires that are then bound in a sturdy metal frame. That metal binding is the key—it keeps the excluder perfectly flat, prevents the edges from bending, and makes it incredibly easy to lift with your hive tool without damaging the wires.

This isn’t the cheapest option, but it represents the best value. It solves the main problem of unbound wire excluders (bent edges) and offers superior longevity compared to any plastic model. It provides the perfect bee space, minimizing burr comb and ensuring easy passage for workers while reliably containing the queen.

This is the right excluder for the beekeeper who subscribes to the "buy once, cry once" philosophy. If you plan on being in this hobby for the long haul and want equipment that simply works without fuss, this is your pick. It’s a foundational piece of gear you’ll never need to replace.

VIVO Plastic Queen Excluder: Budget-Friendly

For the beekeeper just starting out, every dollar counts. The VIVO Plastic Queen Excluder is the perfect entry point, allowing you to try out excluder-based management without a significant financial commitment. It’s made from a single piece of molded plastic, making it lightweight, easy to clean, and free of any sharp metal edges that could potentially harm your bees.

The main draw here is the price. You can often buy two or three of these for the price of one premium metal excluder. This is ideal if you’re experimenting with multiple hives or just aren’t sure if using an excluder fits your beekeeping style. While it may not last a lifetime, it will certainly get the job done for several seasons.

This is the excluder for the pragmatic beginner on a tight budget. If you want to see if excluders work for you before investing in more expensive gear, or if you need to outfit a few new hives affordably, the VIVO is a smart, low-risk choice. It’s functional, effective, and gets you in the game.

Dadant Welded Wire Excluder: Most Durable

Dadant has been a pillar of the beekeeping supply world for over 150 years, and their Welded Wire Excluder is a testament to that legacy. This is a no-frills, heavy-duty piece of equipment built for one purpose: to last forever. Made from heavy-gauge steel with high-quality welds, it feels substantial in your hands and will stand up to years of scraping, prying, and hive inspections.

Unlike some cheaper metal options, the spacing on a Dadant is exact and uniform across the entire surface, offering no chance for a determined queen to find a weak spot. It lacks a wooden or metal binding, which some prefer for a lower profile in the hive. This is professional-grade equipment, designed for beekeepers who are hard on their gear and expect it to perform flawlessly season after season.

If you prioritize raw durability above all else, this is your excluder. It’s for the beekeeper who sees their hive components as lifetime tools, not disposable accessories. It’s an investment in reliability that will pay for itself by never needing to be replaced.

Hoover Hives Plastic Excluder for 10-Frames

Hoover Hives has made a name for itself with complete hive kits that are popular among beginners, and their 10-Frame Plastic Excluder is designed to integrate seamlessly into that system. Made from a durable, food-grade plastic, it’s engineered to fit their 10-frame Langstroth hives perfectly, eliminating the gaps or overhangs you might get with other brands.

What sets this apart is its design consistency. If you already own a Hoover Hives setup, you know the quality and aesthetic. This excluder matches that, with smooth, bee-friendly edges and a rigid construction that resists warping better than cheaper plastic models. It’s a step up in quality from the most basic budget options.

This is the ideal choice for the beekeeper already invested in the Hoover Hives ecosystem. If you value a perfect fit and consistent quality across all your components, stick with the brand you trust. It’s a reliable plastic option that removes any guesswork about compatibility.

Betterbee 8-Frame Metal Excluder: Best Fit

As hobby beekeeping grows, 8-frame hives are surging in popularity. They’re lighter and easier to manage, but finding properly sized, high-quality accessories can be a challenge. The Betterbee 8-Frame Metal Excluder is the solution, offering the durability of metal in a size that’s precisely engineered for the narrower 8-frame equipment.

Using a 10-frame excluder on an 8-frame box is sloppy, leaving an overhang that can get caught on things and create unwanted entrances for pests. This excluder eliminates that problem entirely. It’s a simple, unbound metal grid, but its perfect dimensions provide a secure, tight fit that ensures no bee—or queen—can bypass it around the edges.

This is a must-have for any serious 8-frame beekeeper. If you’ve chosen 8-frame hives to save your back, don’t compromise with ill-fitting gear. This excluder is the right tool for the job, providing a professional fit that improves hive security and makes management easier.

GloryBee Wood Bound Metal Excluder: Classic

There’s a timeless appeal to traditional wooden beekeeping equipment, and the GloryBee Wood Bound Metal Excluder captures that perfectly. It combines a durable metal wire grid with a sturdy wooden frame, offering the best of both worlds. The wood frame provides excellent rigidity, creates the correct bee space automatically, and is easy to grip with your hands or hive tool.

This style has been a favorite for generations of beekeepers. The wood rim adds a small amount of insulation and is less likely to chill the brood nest on a cool morning compared to an all-metal excluder. It simply looks and feels like it belongs on top of a classic wooden Langstroth hive.

This is the excluder for the beekeeping traditionalist. If you appreciate the aesthetic and feel of woodenware and want your equipment to match, this is the one for you. It’s a functional, beautiful, and classic piece of gear that honors the craft of beekeeping.

Pierco Plastic Drone & Queen Excluder: Versatile

At first glance, the Pierco excluder looks like a standard plastic model, but it serves a dual purpose. The openings are sized to exclude not only the queen but also the larger male drones. This added functionality makes it a powerful tool for more advanced hive management techniques.

Why exclude drones? It’s a key component of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for Varroa mites, as mites prefer to reproduce in drone brood. Some beekeepers use it to manage genetics during queen rearing or to prevent drones from consuming excess honey in the supers. While not a necessary feature for every beginner, it offers options for the future.

This is the excluder for the forward-thinking beekeeper. If you’re already reading about Varroa management or thinking about raising your own queens down the line, this versatile tool is a smart purchase. It solves an immediate need while giving you capabilities for more advanced techniques later.

How to Properly Install Your Queen Excluder

Proper installation is simple but absolutely critical to success. The goal is to place the excluder between the brood nest and the honey supers. The best time to do this is when you’re adding your first honey super for the season, typically after the bees have filled 70-80% of the frames in their top brood box.

Before you place the excluder, you must do one crucial thing: confirm the queen is in the brood box below. The easiest way to do this is to find a frame with freshly laid eggs. Since only the queen can lay eggs, their presence confirms she is where she needs to be. If you accidentally trap her above the excluder in a honey super, she will quickly fill your beautiful honeycomb with brood, defeating the entire purpose of the device.

Once you’ve located the queen (or evidence of her) in the brood chamber, simply place the excluder flat on top of the uppermost brood box. Ensure it sits squarely on the box edges, leaving no gaps. Then, place your honey super directly on top of the excluder. That’s it. The workers will move freely up into the super to deposit nectar, while the queen remains below, focused on maintaining the colony’s population.

Ultimately, a queen excluder is a tool, not a rule, and the best one for you depends on your budget, your management style, and the type of equipment you run. Whether you choose the indestructible nature of metal or the affordability of plastic, using an excluder can bring order and predictability to your honey harvest. Choose wisely, install it carefully, and you’ll be one step closer to bottling your own pure, brood-free honey.