Yeah, when all a novice has available is foundation, and an excluder is to
be used, supering to stave off swarming can be tricky.  Same goes for
supers set up for cut-comb.  Once there are some drawn super-combs
available they can be mixed in with the foundation to lure the bees up.
The odd stubborn colony in two brood-boxes will still balk at the excluder,
tho'.  In those cases it seems helpful to take a few combs -- or an entire
super -- from another hive, in which the bees are already working well
through the excluder, and switch them, bees and all (no newspaper
required).  Dat'll do da trick.
 
Strong single-brood-box colonies don't seem to present the same problem,
for some reason.
 
>...
>We normally use excluders because we don't want brood in the honey supers.  We
>have found that the wax moths tend to prefer comb that has had brood in it.
 
yes sir
 
>I think  it may be safe to NOT use an excluder if there is a wide enough
>band of honey >at the top of the brood chamber,  since it is said the
>queen won't cross the >honey to lay.   Anyone have some comments about
>that?
 
This is often effective, but some plucky queens go running all over and
will ignore the barrier, so it is not 100% reliable.  With double brood
chambers I have found that a honey-layer does not appear in the upper brood
box early enough to be useful (at least in most years, and in this region).
You can put the first honey-super on without the excluder, and once the
bees are working well up there put the excluder beneath, but by then there
is probably brood in the super, you'd have to hunt down the queen to make
sure she wasn't up there, etc. = a pain.
 
Running three deeps for brood, however, a reliable honey-barrier usually
*does develop at the upper portion of the 3rd brood-box, by the time the
first honey-supers are required, and this obviates the need for an
excluder.  I have tried to get the honey-barrier to materialize while using
just the 2 deep brood-chambers but haven't had good luck.  Maybe there is a
twist to it?
 
>Just my 2 cents....;)
>
>Ian Watson    [log in to unmask]
>real estate agent     gardener    baritone
>beekeeper---> 6 colonies and counting