Excluders have other uses other than excluding the queen from honey
supers.  Where I keep bees the honey flow is over by June 1 and often we
get little appreciable honey until the fall, and then not always.  In my
case I put an excluder over the (single) brood chamber immediately after
the honey flow, usually when I am removing honey with fume boards and
driving down the queen.  If you don't exclude the queen from the honey
super there will be no honey left come fall.  I run some hives in 2 deeps
and some in a deep plus a six and five eights super, either way I put in
an excluder after the flow.
 
A second good reason to split the brood chamber from honey supers is ease
of finding queens during requeening.  It is a whole lot easier to find a
queen restricted to 9 frames in single brood chamber than to look for one
over two or three deeps.  When its real hot and the queen does not show
herself after two looks over the brood combs I use an excluder to "sift"
the bees through to almost always find the queen.
 
When it comes to use during honey flows I admit to being ambivalent about
excluders.  Sometimes I use them and sometimes not, usually not.
 
Bill Lord
Louisburg, NC
 
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WILLIAM G LORD
E-Mail  : wglord@franklin
Internet: [log in to unmask]
Phone   : 9194963344