Hi Jerry & All

I normally use single deep brood nests with medium honey supers above a queen excluder.  I never use upper entrances in summer always in winter.  If there are any openings in my honey supers(gaps big enough) the bees will find it and use it.  If I delay closing the winter upper entrance too long I often find brood in the honey supers(I assume a supercedure queen returning home).  Operating without a queen excluder results in pollen in the honey supers thus in the extracted honey which requires statement on the label(Canadian CFIA rule identifying pollen presence) and honey that crystallises earlier.  The bees move honey(brood food) but very little pollen above the queen excluder to make room for wall to wall brood in my 9 frame brood boxes.

Bob Darrell
Caledon Ontario
Canada 44N80W

> 
> Pollen gather's generally use the bottom entrance, not the top.    It's nectar gatherer's that I mainly see using a top entrance.   And I don't use queen excluders. 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html