Hello Drew,
 
        Bob Stevens at Betterbee suggests putting the queen excluder on
sideways(perpendicular to the frames),this lets the workers move freely into
the supers at both ends,and as You say,the queen prefers to move up through
the middle.I use three medium supers for brood chambers,and My bees always
fill the top one with honey,so I haven't had to use an excluder yet.Don't
cut the excluder as they come in very handy for other purposes,such as
finding which box the queen is laying in.Good luck,
Garry Libby
Boston,USA
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