>> I... was wondering if it would be a good idea (or is it standard >> practice) to drill a hole or some other opening above the excluder for >> the workers to enter and exit more easily? > It is definitely not standard practice in my part of the world. Your > bees will deposit their pollen in the supers instead of in the brood > chamber... Here in Alberta, we do have some holes in supers above excluders and have never found much, if any, pollen in the supers. We have almost always used excluders and found that anytime we left them off that our work increased drastically and the crops were smaller. The main disadvantage of too many holes in a hive is that bees do not store honey as well near entrances, and that moreover draughts may cause the bees to withdraw to the brood chambers during a cool spell. These effects can result in earlier capping and thinner combs as well as less honey being stored in the supers. Another disadvantage is that -- under some conditions -- the bees will be very unpleasant to remove using a blower, since they are used to flying from a hole in a tall white thing and, when you have taken the hive apart and are trying to blow out bees you are the tallest white thing around :) Although we have played with various ventillation schemes and entrances for access to the supers over the last quarter century, we have concluded that two 1" auger holes in each brood chamber and a wide open entrance at the floor give very good results. I'm not even sure that the wide open entrance is necessary and was intrigued by Vince's recent post. As far as the bees getting through excluders is concerned, it is seldom a problem with strong hives. The only warning here is that the brood chambers must not exceed two standards in volume. If the broods are made of three or more standards, the bees may find they have enough honey storage below the excluder, become honey bound, and never go through. If a single standard brood box is used, excluders are no impediment at all. We feel that *reversing* doubles before adding the excluder is very wise. Although most hives will go through anyhow, having brood in contact with the excluder's lower surface makes the combs above much more interesting to the bees. Allen