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 -- WILLIAM G LORD E-Mail : wglord@franklin Internet: [log in to unmask] Phone : 9194963344