so that the smallest notch forms the entrance. This reduces the air flow and helps the bees to keep the hive warm. In spring and fall, it is turned so that the larger notch forms the entrance. In hot weather, or full nectar season the entire reducer can be removed to help cool the hive and permit more traffic to the fields. In winter when the bees are too slow-moving to defend the hive, the entrance reducer may be supplemented with a mouse barrier to keep mice out of the hive. Modern hives usually extend the bottom board slightly beyond the entrance to form a landing area, so that in nectar season, larger numbers of bees can land and walk into the hive. Langstroth's patent supplemented this with a cloth landing area supported on two wooden arms. In Langstroth's patent, although the hive as a whole was level, the bottom board was slightly tilted toward the entrance so that liquid water would run out of the hive. The tilt also helped the bees to push dirt, debris and dead bees out of the hive entrance. Modern commercial hives usually have level bottom boards. Langstroth's patent entrance included two traps designed to attract wax moths away from the bee entry. These were loosely mounted so that a beekeeper could remove and destroy wax moth larvae and pupae. Specialty parts The Cloake board, also known as the "bottom-without-a-bottom", is a specialty piece of hive equipment that is installed between two hive bodies of the brood nest. It allows the beekeeper to insert a sliding metal or wood panel, which will split the hive into two parts without having to lift the hive boxes, the objective being to split a single hive into two independent hives. The queen excluder is a mesh grid, usually made of wire or plastic, sized such that worker bees can pass through, but queens (generally) cannot. When used, it is generally placed between the hive body and the honey supers. The purpose of the queen excluder is to keep the queen from laying eggs in the honey supers, which can lead to darker honey and can also complicate extraction. Many beekeepers reject the use of queen excluders, however, claiming that they create a barrier for workers and result in lower levels of honey collection and storage. A feeder is most often used to feed granulated sugar or sugar