Provost,Norm (NFSPOST1) wrote:
 
> Dear Friends:
 
As a child (seems like ages ago) I used to tag along with a school
teacher, also beekeeper, carpenter, food and meat canning expert,
surveyor, etc. to whom I owe a great deal of my successes as a
professional.  My adopted private teacher was a "mine" of knowledge and
immensely devoted to teaching.  Many times I remember things that he
would casually tell me while I watched him almost in a hypnotic trance
as he worked his hives.  The one that comes to mind now is "excluders
exclude more than the queen." I did not know what he meant at the time
but I surely can relate to it now.  Sometimes I have thought that it is
advantageous to allow the queen to take a few trips above the brood
chamber to lay.  It is the biggest inducement that the worker bees will
have to visit the honey suppers.  It also might be interpreted as a sign
that there is no room for the queen to lay in the brood chambers.
Replacing the end frames (which usually are full with honey) and placing
them in the honey suppers above will also accomplish two things:
  1.  It will give the queen empty cells to lay and keep it from coming
upstairs.
  2.  Those full frames will definitely entice the bees to move up to
the honey supers.
        When the bees begin to form combs between the frames is a good
indication that
they want to work.  They just need a little enticement and prodding from
their human manager to dedicate that effort to production.  This is
nothing new and perhaps some  will consider it a waste of time on this
forum.  Perhaps.  But thinking about the many "tricks"
that I learned from my old friend, I think not.
Best regards.
Dr. Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA