I have put a flat plastic QE on the brood box of one of my hives (wooden BS national), and the bees have propolised it all over to the brood box and the super... has anyone a tip to avoid upsetting the bees in trying to inspect the hive when you are on your own? The QE is completely stuck to brood and super boxes?
Hi Nadia, welcome to the forum.
I use a mixture of wire and plastic excluders and definitely prefer the wire ones. At this time of year bees tend to use more propolis and with warm weather it can get sticky and annoying - and some colonies use more than others - you may just be unlucky with your colony. It can be awkward when lifting heavy supers only to find that the excluder has attached itself to the bottom of them - or is half attached and won't allow you to lift the super off cleanly. My suggestion would be to try vasalene on the top surface so the supers come off more easily. Then it's a matter of slowly lifting the excluder off and not trying to ping bees when it suddenly comes free.
One thought is that you could use a wedge or spacer abut 25 mm wide - lift up the super with your hive tool and put the wedge in place. This will allow you to lever the excluder down without the weight of the super in one hand or without having to lower the super down again and crush bees.