I'm not Jim, but I agree with him. After 40 plus years of beekeeping, I have used excluders many times for many reasons. I have found an excluder for a newbee to be very detrimental. After about 5 years of intense beekeeping, a keeper may know enough of the pitfalls to be able to be successful at using them. Until then, he should only use them for getting his truck out of a mud hole.
Out there today, with the motivation for the new wave being "yummy honey", it is your loss - "your" being the consumer - where the newbee is not using a QX.... you would end up eating unseen raw protein, "beeguts" in local dialect.
Like screens/fume boards/ventilation penetrations the mighty QX demands management to "work as advertised", I read you acknowledge this..?... sure a colony will get by without using one if as an individual you manage your own preference but advice as has been posted and now seconded is naive at best, misleading at worst.
An' just for the record ol' fella??
"40 plus years" in the NH is not quite 8 years of real time in climes bees evolved in.
0r... if you like, your 40 equals my 100 plus, all of it using QX in some form or another.
Currently I am developing a variation for TBH colonies which I hope to market, this as I have found TBH colonies do very well for the addition.
Bill