I have heard several opinions ..what would keep the queen from laying in the honey supers. Seems this could be a problem if you want to extract the honey. Am I missing something?
I have not used excluder 40 years. Queen lay eggs in lower part. It need 2-3 brood boxes.
Professionals use excluder in many ways. I have not seen reasonable explanation, why and when. I have heard some methods in different meaning. Amateurs use excluder often without brains, just use.
At late summer it is easy to drop queen down with larva frames if it goes to lay eggs upstairs and you just put excluder near the end of summer. And you may move light color brood frames down and black ones pup, so you may take black ones from usage.
In many cases excluder devides the hive into two parts. Some beekeepers cannot live without excluder. It is the most valuable thing in whole system like star in front of Mercedes Benz.
I have tried to catch some special honey but it cannot be ordered.