> Hey you Aussie beeks--do you know of any formal trials comparing the two?

Trevor indicated he thought Kleinschmidt may have done one.  I think it
would be hard to do one that was meaningful.  Many variables then pop up,
even in the one site.  A hive with a pipe of bees through 3 or 4 supers is a
different management proposition to one with all that brood in one box under
an excluder.

That said it is almost universal here for commercial beekeepers to use a
single Langstroth brood box, either eight or ten.  Then of course an
excluder and mostly full depth supers.  I.e. Langstroth.  A few use
shallower supers, but since mechanical aids have become almost universal
standardising gear has become the norm. Under supering is also
common/normal.  One or two boxes being removed from the top of the hive,
these days mostly using clearer boards (escape boards), sometimes blowers.
Chemical removal is now illegal, or at least unacceptable to the packers.

Again, since advent of mechanisation it is normal to leave around one super
of honey on the hive at all times. 

There does seem to be a trend, at least in Qld to only have one super on the
hive at any time.  That I assume is removed and an empty replaced at that
time.  How they manage to keep the bees in the hive is a mystery to me.
One Queenslander that I know, and who turned up nearby was not succeeding in
this matter.  They were chucking swarms left, right and centre.

For winter honey flows it is often the technique.  Only one super and remove
and replace at the same time. 

Keep in mind that in most of Australia we can work honey twelve months of
the year.  Every blue moon without shifting.  One of those blue moons I
stayed on honey for thirteen months.  But mostly it will entail at least 3
or 4 moves.  Also we have to take pollen plants into account as many of the
major honey trees are pollen deficient, especially on the eastern side of
the country. Also none of the eucalypts flower every year, some most years,
but others, years between flowering.  Similarly flower bud can be held from
a couple of months to two years. It is not unheard of for someone to move
onto a flow a year early.

For some reason here, even strong bees, do not seem to work through the
excluder if it is above a super, even a shallow one.

Geoff Manning

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