Tim Peters, Kirby VT, wrote asking about excluders.
 
       Excluders come on only one size.  Some people refer to them as honey
excluders because of the concern that you mention, believing that they deter
bees from going into the supers.
      Many people do not use them between brood chambers and honey supers
because, in a good honey flow, incoming nectar will fill the supers and  push
the brood nest down out of the supers if the queen was up there.  (When I
started keeping bees, I used queen excluders because I thought I was supposed
to.)
 
      Queen excluders are useful for:
             Locating a queen:  put the excluder between the brood chambers
wait at least three days and see which chamber has eggs in it.
             Separating queens in a two-queen colony.  Two queen excluders
right on top of each other keep the queens from stinging each other.
             Keeping a queen out of a super when the wax comb _has_ to be
kept brood-free.
 
     Queen excluders (not plastic ones) can be cleaned by putting them in a
solar wax melter.
 
Tim Sterrett
Westtown, (Southeastern) Pennsylvania, USA
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