Yol. XTIII. 



JAN. 15, 1890. 



No. 2. 



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\ PUBLISHED SEJU-MONTHLY BY 



\A. I. ROOT, MEDINA. OHIO. 



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 be sent to one postofkice. 



r Clubs to different postoflBces, NOT less 

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THICK OR DEEP TOP-BARS FOR 

 VENTING BRACE-COMBS. 



PRE- 



A VALUABLE ARTICLE FROM THE PEN OF JAMES 

 HEDDON. 



Mr. Root:— I was not only somewhat interested 

 but considerably surprised in noting in your last 

 issue the excitement and enthusiasm manifested 

 by some of your subscribers upon the above sub- 

 ject. As it is one which I have had much experi- 

 ence with, and which I have written one or more 

 articles concerning, I think in some back number 

 of Gleanings and American Bee Journal, vrhichl 

 see you have forgotten, and your latter-day sub- 

 scribers have never seen, let me give you a little 

 history concerning deep top-bars, and also state 

 that, while it is a fact, as I stated years ago in pub- 

 lic print, that they do tend to lessen the amount of 

 brace-comb which will be built, and have a still 

 stronger tendency to produce nice straight combs, 

 they can not be relied upon to take the place of a 

 honey-board, as your correspondents believe. I 

 state this as the result of many experiments, and 

 will say that I now have hundreds of these deep 

 top-bars in use in my apiary, and by this mail I 

 send you a sample taken from one that I now have 

 in stock. Were I at the apiary I could select one 

 for you just like it, which has comb and the rest of 

 the frame attached. Let it not be forgotten, that, 

 at the time I brought forward the idea, a great 

 kick was made against using so much wood and oc- 

 cupying so much of the brood-chamber space with 

 wood instead of comb. It is strange, that, when 

 some bee-keeper comes forward with something 

 new, claiming superiority for it, that such frivolous 

 arguments as "too much wood," "too much bee- 

 space," "too many sticks," etc., are at once raised. 

 But, now for that history: 



Twenty-two years ago, when I first began to pay 



attention to bees and bee-hives, and when the fa- 

 mous K. P. Kidder, of Vermont, was selling hives 

 all over this country, either in person or through 

 agents (Mr. A. C. Balch, of Kalamazoo, can tell you 

 something about it, as he was an ardent admirer 

 and user of the Kidder hives), I saw in Mr. Kidder's 

 hive two styles of top-bars, and one of them was 

 one of these deep bars with the V, which was made 

 on the bar with a molding-machine. This bar must 

 have been made of l>2-inch pine, as the side of the 

 bar ran down perpendicularly for at least la of an 

 inch before the bevel began. It seems to me that 

 any one of our older and experienced bee-keepers 

 of to-day should know enough of the instincts of 

 bees to know that such deep top-bars would have a 

 tendency to both lessen the building of brace- combs 

 and guide the bees to straighter comb-building, 

 where no foundation or only foundation-guides 

 were used. Do not misunderstand me. The comb 

 may be all within its frame, and the top part of it 

 straightly attached to the board, and still the comb 

 may not be what I call straight ; that is, smooth and 

 level, like a board. These deep bars have a tenden- 

 cy to produce such combs. 



Mr. Kidder experimented regarding the distance 

 apart these top-bars should be placed, putting % 

 bars so close together that ten of them occupied 14 

 inches. Friend Looft, on page 18, says it is a won- 

 der that so few bee-keepers have tried such top- 

 bars, and asks people to report from actual experi- 

 ence. As I used hundreds of them before 1 invented 

 the honey-board, and as I did report regarding 

 them years ago, and got a rebuff at every corner, 

 and I found them only favorable to reduchm brace- 

 eonibs, and not by any means equal to the honey- 

 board, I will let that answer friend Looft's query. 

 Mr. Bingham has used such top-bars, !'» of an inch 

 square, for many years, and at the same time used 

 some of them turned cornerwise, one corner up 



