Hi All On the topic of the excluders, Elroy I aggree fully. A few more observationsI have made: After your bees have finished their rapid comb building state, they are less likely to fill the bee space between a super and the body frames with burr comb - if their is a space, the queen will very infrequenlty cross. Another thing is that if the queen is crossinnng into a super, something is wrong - I always welcome more bees, so if a queen wants more space, give it to her and split. It may also be to do with the genetics of the bees. I have seen bees in some areas that seem to actually welcom honney withing the brood rearinng area - I think for cooling purposes - honey acts as a heat sink. So maybe shopping around for queens is the best way to avoid excluders - I am sure it's cheaper than a hundred excluders. I was talking to a guy who was considering putting excluders on his hives. Here in south africa the cheapest excluder one can get costs just over R30. For his 1000 hives therefore he would be spending R30 000, 1 tenth of his toatl earnings for that year on excluders. He tested a batch on an apiary with five on, and five off and found that the difference in honey production with excluders and without would lob of more than twice the cost of putting super on. (In other words the supers would in total cost him R90 000 a year, which is the cost a new truck!!) Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post.