All;

I ran my bees in a story and a half for 25 years and used excluders with
great success.  I would usually find my Russian bees in the 6 5/8's super
in Feb., feed them, reverse and put the deep on top in March ( Russians
winter in a small cluster but can explode in the spring so I learned not to
worry about a smallish winter cluster) and when I reversed again to put the
super on top I would drop the exlcuder under the super unless the hive was
really strong.  I had no trouble getting the bees to go past the excluder
into the supers as space was tight.  I converted to 2 hive bodies 5 years
ago and now find the bees are loath to jump the excluder.  I leave it off
until they have put some honey or eggs in the first super and then drop the
excluder in.  I am in a relatively low honey yield zone, and work a full
time job, so I want an excluder as I cannot inspect as often as I would
wish.  Allen is on the mark with his excluder advice as it is much trickier
when used with a double deep.  When I move bees there is nothing worse than
little honey in the supers but a double deep packed with honey and heavy as
lead.  I am still working out how to manage a double deep and excluders in
my climate.

Bill Lord
Louisburg, NC

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