No Queen Excluder = More Bees in the Box

Checked on the OV hive today to see what's going on now that the queen excluder has been removed. Researching to use one or not I read that some bees seem to have trouble wanting to work above it, or that it should be left off until after the comb is drawn out. My plan is to leave it off entirely for now.

Through the opening in the inner cover I could view a large number of bees were up there! Not so much as drawing out comb but they were certainly checking out the neighborhood.

What I hope to learn is, whether the queen will lay brood up there and if so, how much? I expect that there be full frames of honey that do not contain brood, usually to the outside of the frames containing the brood. At 5 lbs of honey per frame, I'd be satisfied with 2 - 4 frames of honey this summer. Enough to share with friends.