Lloyd Spear wrote:

>Peter, as you know, commercial beekeepers here abouts pretty exclusively
use excluders to keep the queens out of honey frames. 

I know three beekeepers in particular that each have around 400 colonies and
overwinter in Tompkins County and neighboring counties. One uses excluders
and the other two don't. The ones that don't use them use all deep frames,
although one is starting to add mediums into the mix. Most of the commercial
beekeepers I see using excluders put them over the first box these days. 

>Were you able to get light honey from your dark frames in California?  Do
you think the light honey stored in dark cells got darkened?

Well, I grew up in San Diego, home of the legendary Black Button Sage
(Salvia mellifera). This honey, when pure, has NO color. Not much taste
either. Also, White Sage (Salvia apiana). I knew a lot of old timers who ran
nothing but black old combs, all deep frames, no queen excluders. As far as
I could tell, the extra light honey was never harmed by the black combs.

Pete

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