>Did you find less/equal/more honey near the brood in this configuration than in conventional SQ? And how about the pollen ditribution?
I think it's typical of a regular hive. There is the bee's tendancy to start backfilling the brood nest to prepare to swarm and then you have to open it up. But up until then they will be expanding it. Pollen, of course, is always near the brood. Some colonies will store lots of it and others just some. I never figured out why but it must be just a genetic variation.
>That's exatly what I thought to be necessary, but some authors report they use only one excluder.
Maybe one would work. I never tried it, to be honest, but I think they might fight otherwise.
>In the other hand, they previously keep the hives piled for a week or more with a double, bee-proof screen. Maybe this helps the queens to get used with the pheromones of each other and decreases the mutual agressive tendency.
Maybe.
>I was thinking of an entrance in the excluders, but I think they'd have to be large enough to support the heavy traffic in the season (would a small landing board help/encourage the bees to use this entrance?).
I don't see any difference with landing boards. I think they are to make beekeepers feel better.
I guess my point was that drones can get out. You can have other entrances that are larger.
>But then maybe the rims would have to be a little higher, for providing a useful entrance
1/4" high will do. Anything over 3/8" is just more ventilation and probably won't speed up traffic any.
> and that could slightly violate the bee space.
Slightly larger than bee space at the entrance is easier to get away with since the bees don't tend to burr up a high traffic area.
>Anyway, maybe excluders should come normally with a closable entrance, don't you think so?
Seems like a good idea.
I don't really use them so I don't think about it much.