At 10:37 PM 9/21/97 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi All
>
>Another question from a new beekeeper
>
>The book says, that when you lift the crown board, that you should check
>that the queen is not on the underside of it.
>
>It strikes me, that if you always put a queen excluder over the brood
>chamber even before you put on any supers. that this possibility would be
>eliminated, so it is one less thing for a new beekeeper (who like myself
>would not be able to identify the queen in the melee of bees anyway), to
>have to contend with.
>
>I am aware that a very small queen can possibily get through the excluder,
>but to an amateur, who would have difficulty in identifying any sized queen,
>this would hardly be of significance.
>
>What do our experienced people think?
>
Hello, my name is Jeff Barnett and I've had some experience in commerical
beekeeping.  I'm not certain what you mean by crown board, but if you mean
inner cover you shouldn't have to worry.  If you use a serviceable queen
excluder over a double brood box you should never have a problem (99%).
However if you use your excluder over a shallow super and brood box, the
queen has a higher chance of trying to get through the excluder. It's really
pretty simple, the larger the
honey barrier between the brood chamber and the queen excluder the less
liklihood that the queen would even try to go above it. I hope this was helpful.
 
Jeff Barnett
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retired(for now) queen producer.