THOUSAND ANSWERS 81 
Q. Are not queen-excluders a hindrance to bees, or will I have 
to get some excluders? If so, how many? 
A. While it is generally thought best to use excluders for 
extracted honey, some do not use them, such prominent men as C. 
P. Dadant and E. D. Townsend being of the number. The latter 
says that by giving additional supers always on top he has no 
need for excluders. If you find it is better to use them, you will 
need one for each colony. 
Q. Have you tried the new queen and drone-excluders, or 
honey-boards, made of wire? Have they any claim to be classed 
as an improvement on the perforated zinc, or is it only a scheme 
of the manufacturers? 
A. I do not use excluders under supers, so I don’t use many 
excluders, although for some purposes they are indispensable. 
Having quite a stock of the old kind of excluders on hand, I have 
never tried the wire excluders. I don’t suppose there is a great 
deal of difference, but one would suppose that the bees would like 
the smooth wires better than the sharp edge left by the punching 
of the metal for the perforations. 
The wire excluders also allow better ventilation. 
Q. Can virgin or unfertile queens pass through excluding 
zinc? 
A. A laying queen looks much larger than a virgin, but it is 
the abdomen that’s larger, not the thorax. It’s not the abdomen, 
but the thorax that prevents a queen going through the zinc, and 
I think the thorax of a laying queen is no larger than it was 
when she was a virgin; so she ought to go through no more easily 
one time than another. But a virgin queen probably makes a 
more vigorous effort to go through, so she might go through an 
aperture through which she would not force herself after she 
settled down as a laying queen. 
Extracted Honey.— Q. I am going to buy five dovetailed 10- 
frame hives this spring. I only want honey for the house. Which 
is better for me, fhc extracting hive or sections? I read in the 
bee-books the extracting hive is best for home use. Please tell 
me why. 
A. Extracting saves the bees much labor in building comb, so 
it is generally estimated that you can get about one-half more ex- 
tracted honey than comb. So, in deciding the question for your- 
self, the question is whether you would rather have 100 pounds of 
comb honey or 150 pounds of extracted. 
Q. Is it advisable to extract honey as soon is it is gathered? 
Is there any danger of it getting sour? 
