No queen excluder. I don't use them. I think what you are seeing is an "Imirie shim." It's just a rim I made from scrap wood, the same dimensions as a hive body. It's about 3/4" thick and I cut a 3" wide 1/4" tall dado in it for an entrance. It just gives the bees an upper entrance so they don't have to carry the honey all the way up through the whole hive. They don't use it as much as I thought they would. The shim is about the same thing as an inner cover, without the plywood in it. Just a rim of wood, if that makes sense.

I run an unlimited brood nest. Earlier this spring the queen had brood in both deeps and the first 2 supers. They've pushed her down into the first super and both deeps now.

When I extract, I put my comb in a deep freeze for a week or so, then I stack the supers up, crisscrossing them so light can shine in the boxes and air can circulate in them. Supposed to keep the wax moths at bay but I lost a lot of brood comb last fall, but thankfully no honey super comb was damaged to the point that the bees couldn't fix it. White comb always gets brittle when you take it out of the hive, until the bees have worked it more than one year. Just stick it back on the hive and let them clean up any mold and they'll rework the comb.

I want to come up with a better way to store comb so I won't lose any to wax moths. I found out there is a strain of BT that kills wax moth larvae but doesn't hurt bee larvae. I'm going to spray that on any brood comb that I store but I don't want to spray it on honey comb. It's BT aizawai.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14