>  Perhaps this would not be the case if you had your hives stacked tall with empty drawn comb,

I would say yes, that's it. I believe the key to successful honey production is to have an unlimited supply of drawn out old combs. My view is that hives get honeybound if you are late in putting on supers. Other things that interfere with them fully occupying the supers are: incorrect use of queen excluders, too much new foundation. 

Maybe most importantly: mediocre or poor colonies often refuse to go up and just plug out the brood nest. I use two deeps for brood and 3 to 5 mediums with no excluders. Sometimes the supers get brood in them, but I work around that. If I were going to use excluders, I would put them over the first story, not the second. That's based on what others do, but as I said, I don't use them.

Most beekeepers' problems come from not doing the right thing at the right time. This is either due to not knowing, not paying attention, or having way too many hives to get everything right. Bad weather can really bugger things up too. 

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html