Hello all... I am a new beekeeper who will be starting with two hives this spring: one will be a full-blown hive that I am getting from another beekeeper here in town; the other is a Buckfast package. I will be requeening the established hive with a Buckfast queen. To those who were kind enough to help me on previous posts, thanks so much! Anyway, I am confused about the recent discussions here on the list concerning queen excluders and foundation use. Let me tell you all what I was thinking of doing, and get some advice... It was recommended to me, since I will be using all medium supers, that I use 3 mediums for the brood chambers for my hives. This is what is being done by most of the people in the beekeeping association I have joined in the eastern San Francisco Bay area. I was also counseled to start with cut comb honey to begin with, and so that is what I was planning to do. What has me confused is some of the messages that have stated that bees often won't go up through an excluder to draw foundation. Since I am planning to produce cut comb honey and would rather not have brood in my honey, would it be safe to let the bees begin to draw the foundation in the first honey super first, then add the excluder (as I think was mentioned in one of the posts)? Would it make sense to take a frame of drawn foundation from the established hive to "bait" the bees into the foundation-filled super first? Would the use of three brood chambers provide enough of a "honey barrier" to prevent the queen from going up into the honey supers so that an excluder would not be necessary? I realize that some of this information may have been covered in the posts, but I guess I didn't get it! I am also confused on the supering process (top supering vs. bottom supering), but I guess I have a lot to learn this year! Thanks in advance for your helping a newbee! Mary Caldwell Benicia, CA [log in to unmask]