I've seen brood above the excluder on more than one occasion (most recently yesterday) but this was worker brood and caused by workers moving eggs. It always occurs when the bee space is slightly wrong (in Saturday's case the super had far too much bottom clearance, causing the bees to build comb up through the excluder as if it wasn't there) The excluder was in good condition, the Queen was in the brood chamber beneath the excluder but for about 5 cells above the excluder there was a small patch of worker brood. I've never actually witnessed a worker transferring an egg but there's no other explanation that I can think of and they certainly have the manipulative ability. I've never seen drone brood above the excluder, but laying workers would obviously be one explanation of that. Alan Riach Bathgate, Edinburgh