Hi Charles
 
I have used  excluders and no excluders, and find that the queen does not like to lay eggs in honey
supers which have already been drawn very deep by the use of wide frame spacing in a previous years
super. So this is what I do...
If I have foundation, I use an excluder and narrow frame spacing, once drawn and filled with honey,
I extract it and then put it back with wide frame spacing, they then draw it out into big fat combs
of honey. These can then be put back on without much fear of the queen wanting to lay eggs in them.
        I also find excluders essential where I am trying to get comb honey, as any brood wrecks this, as
even when honey is stored in the cell which has once had brood, the pupa cases still remain...yuk!
        On thepoint of mean bees, My bees are all raised by myself, and therefore have questionable
parentage, with the feral/wild bees mixing with various commercial strains people bring in. This
leads to bees of many differrent "personalities" with bees of the same strength, age etc being very
differrent. Some are so docile, you could look at them in your underwear, whereas along the line,
some others are really quite nasty. This has advantages however, as you can choose which ones to
put in your garden, and those to put in other peoples gardens!
        The temperament is down to many things, but mastly the genetic make-up, and the young bees will
eventually grow into  old stingers, so a colony has it's basic personality , and can only change by
requeening with a gentle strain, and will not change by the bees growing up(unless it is requeened)
 
        Anyway, hope this helps. If you want hints on requeening  aggressive colonies, then get back to me
as there was considerable discussion last year on this, and I have some old mails somewhere.
 
(This is all probably far to fiddly for the commercial guys)
 
Take care
Steve