Honey bound

The bees will ignore empty frames which are above an excluder if there is no comb in them. I put a super on Hive D earlier this year but then took the excluder away then the bees weren't using the super. Now they are using it - for brood rearing. This is inconvenient because I hoped to take honey from it.

I have left the excluder out of a hive before with same result. The Queen will lay where the temperature is optimal. When the outside weather is cooler this will be at the top of the hive. It may be lower in the height of summer but I haven't observed this.