Pushed bees down under excluder...mistake?

[theriverhawk]

I run single deeps. I overwintered 5 of my hives with a medium super on. Two days ago, each of these had brood in the medium super. Today, I pushed all the bees back into the lower brood box and placed a queen excluder between the brood box and medium super. Why am I doing this? I am wanting to make 3 frame splits off of the 9 frame brood box, raise some queens and sell a few nucs to friends. After the brood in the mediums hatches, I plan on pushing the bees back down and taking the super off.
These hives are not weak nor low on bees, but they aren't boiling over yet, either. My question/concern: If it gets cold again before the brood in the medium hatches, will a majority of the workers move up high to keep the brood warm and risk leaving the queen down below?
Would love to hear ya'lls thoughts/experiences.

[Jim134]

  My question/concern: If it gets cold again before the brood in the medium hatches, will a majority of the workers move up high to keep the brood warm and risk leaving the queen down below?
Would love to hear ya'lls thoughts/experiences.

Yes the bees will leave the Queen under excluder for brood and/or food ....


  BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

[schawee]

i agree with jim.they will leave the queen and cover the brood.

[yockey5]

I learned this lesson the hard way. Never agian will I use a queen excluder after August.

[backyard warrior]

My 2 cents queen excluders are good for cut comb honey and manipulation of the hive for queen rearing.  It doesnt bother me if my queens go up into the honey super a bit because the bees will drive her down once a good flow starts.  why restrict the amount of brood a hive wants to raise i like numbers and if they want to produce numbers im going to let them.  Space is the key you need to give them brood room space and nectar gathering space hence your honey supers.  Chris

[sterling]

Sounds like a good way to get an early swarm because you will have a bunch o bees with nothing to keep um busy and no place to go when the brood in the med chews out and the queen can't get back up there to lay.

If raising bees is your goal and your going to do all that splitting you can use the med for a nuc also to make a queen, or put your orginal queen in the med and they will build up fast. After you get it going put a deep with drawn comb or foundation on the med and let em expand into the deep. When they move their brood into the deep you can put the med back on top and start all over. Or you can leave it on the bottom for them to store pollen in this fall.

[Michael Bush]

>My 2 cents queen excluders are good for cut comb honey

Interestingly every classic book I've read says NOT to use an excluder for comb honey... and I never do.

[backyard warrior]

You are right mr. bush i just checked and i  misread it in the Eugene Killion book thanks for bringing this to my attention.  So if i may ask what keeps the queen from going into the comb honey ??