Mick Bozard asks about queen exluders on the bottom of colonies... I would think that the biggest problem with putting a queen excluder below the brood box is that a queen excluder is also a drone excluder - you will soon have a colony loaded with dead drones that the bees are unable to clean out. Also, queen excluders don't work 100% of the time - some virgin queens can fit through, as well as some queens that are ready to depart with a swarm. Why would you want to do this anyhow? What if your queen was killed, and you didn't know about it - the bees may requeen themselves, and then the queen NEEDS to go on her mating flights - if your Q-excluder prevents that, you have just killed your colony. If you are doing it to prevent swarming, there are better ways to do it that are not as injurious to the health of the colony. Rick Hough, [log in to unmask] 30 minutes NE of Boston, MA