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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



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 BRACH-COMBS, AND THEIR ABVANXAGES. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



It has been with much interest that I have read all that has been said pro and 

 con by way of arguments, experience, desires, wishes, etc., along the line of wide 

 and thick top-bars for the frames, to do away with brace and burr-combs, all, or 

 nearly all, seeming to think that it would be a great advantage to "be rid of such 

 a nuisance," or, at least, most who have written on this subject seem to think that 

 these little bits of comb between the top-bars to the frames, and those between the 

 top-bars and the sections, cannot be anything else than a nuisance. I admit that 

 they are often an annoyance in the manipulation of the hive, but instead of consid- 

 ering them a nuisance, I consider these same bits of comb a great help, and for 

 years I have allowed them to remain on the top-bars of my frames, just because \ 

 considered them of value ; that is, I consider them qf more value than they are an 

 annoyance or disadvantage. Were I working an apiary for extracted honey, I 

 might change my mind a little, perhaps, but for comb honey I would not allow any 

 one to scrape them off my frames, or substitute thick top-bars in their places for 50 

 cents per hive. 



Years ago, 'I thought of them as most people do to-day, considering them a nui- 

 sance, and not knowing of the thick top-bar project at that time, I scraped them off 

 in the fall when I prepared my bees for winter; thus doing away with them until 

 the next season, when the sections were on again, and the bees built them in during 

 the surplus flow of honey. This I did until one fall, through an extra amount of 

 other work, I did not get time to go over more than about two-thirds of the apiary 

 in preparing for winter, guessing at the rest, or what amounted to the same thing, 

 weighing the hives to come at the amount of stores they had, instead of inspecting 

 every frame, as I usually do, so that I may know for certain just what each hive 

 contains. Previous to this I had used the Hill device, or something similar, to give 

 the bees a passage-way over the combs during the winter, as is so often recommended 

 to be used under the bee-quilt ; but frequent examinations during the winter satis- 

 fied me that these brace-combs, which I had heretofore taken so much pains to re- 

 move, answered every purpose of such a device, besides being much cheaper, as well 

 as requiring no room in ray shop, or lugging back and forth from shop to apiary both 

 spring and fall, which they re<iuired when used ; while with these brace-combs the 

 frames were never misplaced in putting in and out of the cellar, as was sometimes 

 the case where I had taken all off as above given. 



But their greatest advantage appeared when I came to put on the sections, for 

 the bees seemed to consider them as little ladders on which to climb up into the 

 sections, for it was a very noticeable fact that the bees entered the sections much 



