Hello Drew, Bob Stevens at Betterbee suggests putting the queen excluder on sideways(perpendicular to the frames),this lets the workers move freely into the supers at both ends,and as You say,the queen prefers to move up through the middle.I use three medium supers for brood chambers,and My bees always fill the top one with honey,so I haven't had to use an excluder yet.Don't cut the excluder as they come in very handy for other purposes,such as finding which box the queen is laying in.Good luck, Garry Libby Boston,USA [log in to unmask]