Leo Walford wrote:
 
> First of all a big thank you to all those who proffered advice on my
> wandering,
> and subsequently vanished queen.
>
> Last week I ordered a new queen, as a follow-up inspection to the one
> I first
> described yielded no sign of a queen or eggs. It did yield a couple of
> queen
> cells which (wrongly, I soon realised) I destroyed. The advice I got
> immediately
> after that said: there's no option but to re-queen, so I ordered one
> last week,
> and installed her yesterday evening (still no sign of the old queen,
> no brood
> and a couple more queen cells which (rightly this time I hope) I
> destroyed. I
> now have to wait to see whether she takes. As I have only one hive
> (and have had
> that for less than six weeks) I was not able to provide the hive with
> a frame of
> brood, so I suspect there will be a hiatus while the new bees mature.
>
>  In the meantime, I have a question if anyone has any views.
>
> 1. When I visited the hive yesterday to requeen, a fair number of bees
> were
> clustered outside on the front. It was rather warm and humid (more
> than that in
> my bee suit).
>
> 2. I put a super on some time ago, with a queen excluder. Although I
> do find a
> few bees up there, there does not seem to have been any comb drawn out
> or honey
> stored.
>
> There has been a lot of discussion recently about the reluctance of
> bees to draw
> comb the wrong side of an excluder and I am wondering whether I should
> remove
> the excluder. The points in favour I can think of are that it will
> give the bees
> more space (if the clustering outside is significant, that could be
> important)
> and that it'll encourage them to begin drawing the comb. The points
> against are
> that it will be a disruption of the hive while the queen is settling
> in and it
> will double the amount of space I have to look through to check
> whether she has
> settled in.
>
> Any suggestions or views would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> Leo Walford
> Central London
 
I am a new bee keeper of two years and have been on Bee-L for about a
month long enough to see that I have a lot to learn but, I can answer
this one I think.You don't need the top box at all if this is a new or
small hive.Give them time to build up.I have two vary strong hives and
haven't used an excluder yet .My bees may move up out of the second
brood box at some point but they seem to want to stay below.An old bee
keeper here in Colorado never
uses excluders.I drill a 5/8 hole in my boxes for ventilation the bees
will close it if they don't want it.
Hope you Queen is good this time.
 
                                                      Lawrence Cooke