Queen-Excluders 



Queen-Excluding Hone\ -Board. 



A honey-boaid is easily 

 made queen-excluding by 

 simply cutting saw-kerfs in 

 the edges of the slats, and 

 slipping strips of perforated 

 metal into the kerfs between 

 the slats. Whole sheets of 

 zinc have been used as honey- 

 boards, but they are lacking 

 in rigidity. They are likely 

 to sag, bend, or kink, thus de- 

 stroying the perfection of the 

 bee-spaces. If a sheet sags, the space above becomes so large that there 

 is a likelihood of comb being built therein ; while the space below becomes 

 so small that propolis is placed between the zinc and the tops of the 

 brood-frames. The wood-zinc honey-board is free from this defect. 



In the production of comb honey there is little need for a queen- 

 excluder over an old established colony ; but when a swarm is hived in 

 a contracted brood-chamber having starters only in the frames, and 

 given the supers of partly finished sections from the old hive, a queen- 

 excluder is almost a necessity. The queen, finding no combs in the 

 brood-nest, at once invades the sections, where the bees soon clear out 

 some of the cells for her to lay in, and, having begun her brood-nest 

 there, she is quite likely to remain there until considerable comb has been 

 built below. 



In the production of extracted honey, queen-excluders are a s'reat 

 convenience, if not a necessity. If they arc not used, the brood is almost 

 certain to be scattered through the supers, or upper stories : and ripe 

 honey, ripe as it ought to be when it is extracted, can not be thrown from 

 the combs very rapidly or completely, without at the same time thro\\ing 

 out the brood. If brood is found in the upper story, it is. of course, 

 sometimes possible to exchange such combs for the outside combs in the 

 brood-nest, if such can be found without brood, but all this takes time. 

 To conduct an apiary successfully, the fixtures and methods should be 



