Fred Born said:

> I have 2 medium supers on the hive and brood is only in the
> first(lowest) one and the brood chamber.

> The only thing I can think I might have done, maybe is put
> the excluder in the wrong place and queen got up.

Here's my suggestions, but wait for a few more answers to
be posted before you run out to the hive.  Someone else may
have a better approach.

a) Time to harvest - take the top super off for extraction.

b)  Inspect the lower super for sealed brood and eggs.
     Looking for eggs is much easier than looking for the queen.
     This is best done in strong sunlight, holding the frame so
     that the sun shines down into the cells.  (I only "look for
     the queen" when I want to re-queen.  The rest of the time,
     I simply inspect her egg-laying.  In my view, going on a
     "queen hunt" is simply disruptive to the hive.)

c)  If you see eggs above the queen excluder, the queen is above
     the queen excluder, or you have two queens in your colony.
     Perhaps you can enlist the help of a more experienced
     beekeeper to help you find out if you have two queens or one.

d)  If no one will help, I guess you will have to simply remove
     the queen excluder, and let nature take its course.  You
     certainly do not want to "trap" the queen (if only one) above
     the queen excluder, and two queens will either co-exist, or
     fight it out.

e)  In all your manipulations, be careful, and look out for the
     queen. If you see her, don't "loose" her.  Either capture
     her (which takes quite a bit of skill in itself) or chase her
     down to the "brood hive area" below where the queen
     excluder was.

f)  To prevent more egg laying in the lower-super frames that
     you wish to harvest, remove any frames that have neither
     sealed brood or eggs, and replace them with drawn comb.
     If you have no drawn comb, extract the honey from the
     topmost super, and use those (now empty) frames to
     replace the ones you remove.

g)  After the brood hatches, you can then harvest the remainder
     of the frames in the lower super.

Complex, I know, but this is not a simple situation.

        jim

        farmageddon