Hello everyone!
I just transferred this year's first batch of queen cells to a couple cell 
finishers, and I'm hoping that some of you can help me gain a better 
understanding of cell finishers.  I think I pretty well know the rules, but 
I don't really understand the principles behind the rules.  If I understood 
the principles I might be able to tweak the rules to better fit my 
circumstances, but as it is I feel tightly bound to the standard practices.

So these are my questions: Why do I put a queen excluder between the queen 
in the cell finisher and the cells?  What would happen if I didn't?  As it 
is, why doesn't the established queen in the cell finisher swarm?  
Apparently there are different triggers for swarming and for tending to 
queen cells?  What are those triggers?  What are my options for pressing 
one trigger and not the other, and what are my limitations?  What 
difference would it make if I surrounded my queen cells in the cell 
finisher with open brood versus sealed brood?  Once the queen cells are 
sealed does the optimal set-up in the cell finisher change?

Thanks everyone,
Eric

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