>>How many brood chambers...

I used to use 2 deeps with an excluder.  My honey yield was typically 2 medium supers then.  Per the advice from some here on Bee-L, I have been using 3 deeps for the nest & no excluder for a couple of seasons.  This allows the colonies to form an 'ideal' football-shape brood volume across the three deeps.  My surplus honey is 4-6 medium supers per hive.  Swarming is reduced and delayed as well.  If you time it right, the queen will not lay in the bottom super.

>>do you use for your hives, and is that with deeps or 
mediums and eight or ten frame?

I use 10-frame deeps.  They are very heavy and I do abdominal and back excercises to prevent disc damage. 

>>Also, do most of you use excluders, and if you don't, how does the honey get separated from the brood?

Do some side-by-side evaluations of your own.  The only use I have nowadays for excluders is to separate multiple deeps with a queen in each deep in vertical stacks.  This maximizes my apiary footprint and saves bottom boards...

Waldemar

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