Lloyd Spear asks about the use of excluders during the production of
extracted honey.  I have done this for the past 20 years and use the
following techniques:

1.  I store my supers wet over the winter and use them as bait combs in the
spring placing them on top of the excluder which is placed on top of the
second deep brood nest (3rd western).  The bees are baited up through the
excluder by the honey residue in the wet extracting super.

2.  I don't use combs of brood as bait combs since I began using miticides
in my brood nest.

3.  If I'm using wood wrapped excluders, I remove a piece of wood 1.5 inches
long from the center of one end of the rim, down to the metal excluder
material (on one side of the end only), to use as a bee entrance above the
excluder when it is in place on the hive.

4.  If I'm using metal wrapped excluders I set the excluder back 1 to 1.25
inches from the front of the hive.  This allows bees to go both up and down
around the end of the excluder without going through the excluder.  (I have
also done this with wood wrapped excluders successfully.)  Brood nest bees
usually go up through the excluder readily.   I don't know how easy it is
for them since I've never asked them.   I've never known a queen to go
around the end of an excluder when used in this fashion.  Bees often quit
using the lower hive entrance in favor of this entrance between the brood
nest and honey storage area.   Roy Thurber used to use a piece of 5 mesh
hardware cloth cut approximately 10 x 12 inches which he placed above the
center of the second brood nest as an excluder with good results.

Most bee nests I've seen in walls and trees have had the hive entrance
situated so that brood rearing is below the entrance with honey storage
above.

5.  When the bees have stored nectar in the center six western combs in the
first extracting super, the excluder can be removed and the queen won't
usually move up through this first super to lay in an empty super that may
be above.  This first super now acts as an excluder.  Or you can leave the
excluder on the hive until you remove the honey in the fall but you get more
burr comb on the excluder with this method.

Best wishes,

James C. Bach
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