> > Once again, it's the thorax, not the abdomen, that is hindered by the
> > excluder.

> I don't know about previous discussion but researchers have said at
> various meetings i have attended that bees DO grow in the first few days
> after emerging...

Another thing is that a bee is soft when first emerged.  Maybe the thorax flexes
a bit until the queen gets older and then she can't quite squeeze through.

Also, consider cattle.  It is usually not that they *cannot* get through a fence
that keeps them in -- they often go in and out as calves --  but rather it is
the difficulty of getting through that eventually discourages them as they get
older and larger.

I'm sure the answer to this one is out there somewhere. Someone knows.

In a previous post, a member expressed concern about repeating things that may
be in the logs.  Repetition is not always a bad thing.  Each time a subject goes
around we learn a bit more -- if the contributors have done their homework,
study up a bit, and speak from experience.  A good post is a good post, even if
it repeats something that has been said before, and especially if it says it
differently or considers different circumstances.  We do have a turnover of
membership, and cannot expect everyone to spend more than a few minutes in the
logs before posting.

Having said that, however, I personally often do make a point of looking up
topics I am writing about in the logs before posting and sometimes use a post
from the past as a springboard for discussion.  I have discovered that one can
paste the URL of previous discussion articles into web pages and even into
messages like this.  The URL does not change.  Here's one I got when searching
for 'repetition OR 'repeat':

http://listserv.albany.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9708D&L=bee-l&P=R6710

It's interesting how our perspective changes.  Please direct any comments on the
above mentioned  post to [log in to unmask]  Not to  the list.

allen