Location of brood nest

[pargyle]

I have nursed hives 60 years without excluder.

Key factor is ventilaton. Too much ventilation/cold forces brood area up. Proper ventilation keeps brood area in lower boxes.

Workers order where the brood area will be. The queen does not wander around and does noy lay here and there.

Bees tend to keep the brood space compact.
The beekeeper has his own rules and try to fight against bees' instincts.

Absolutely right Finman ....

 

[ShinySideUp]

My method is to remove my honey supers in the first week in August and leave one or two empty ones on top of the brood box (if weather is good, two, if weather is not so good, then only one). A the end of October I nadir the supers, remove the Apivar strips, place the insulation back inside the roof and leave them until Spring with a two minute interruption on Christmas day to trickle OA as a belt-and-braces thing with the varroa. I know people say that 14 x 12's are enough to last the winter but last winter I nearly lost a colony due to starvation and this colony had a nadir as well (although not a full one). I think they maybe ran out of stores because here in Cornwall it doesn't get very cold and there are days when they leave the hive to forage (for nothing) and use up energy that they can't replace.