248 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEi* 



I do not discredit the statements of those 

 who have recommended salt and sulphur, 

 but I write this for those who having tried 

 those remedies with failure may try the su- 

 persedure. Caging the queen for awhile, or 

 in any way restricting her egg-laying, seems 

 to be influential. Colonies which lose bees 

 rapidly in summer, lose none in winter. 

 This is the same in Iowa."— C. W. Dayton 

 in Am. Bee Journal. 



Are Brace Combs Really Needed 1 

 We have labored for years to get rid of the 

 nuisance of brace combs. We have invent- 

 ed honey boards above which the bees sel- 

 dom come with these pesky combs, and we 

 have tinkered away at the width, and depth, 

 and spacing, of the top bars until we can 

 pretty nearly induce the bees not to put any 

 brace combs above the top bars, and now 

 comes friend Doolittle and says that these 

 same brace combs that have given us so 

 much trouble are really a benefit, as the bees 

 can climb into the supers so easy by using 

 the combs as ladders, that work is com- 

 menced much sooner in the sections as the 

 result of allowing the combs to remain. 

 Here is a part of what he has to say on the 

 subject in the American Bee Journal. 



" But their greatest advantage appeared 

 when I came to put on the sections, for the 

 bees seemed to consider them as little lad- 

 ders on which to climb up into the sections, 

 for it is a very noticeable fact that the bees 

 entered the sections much the sooner where 

 these brace combs were left than they did 

 those where they had been removed ; and, if 

 I correctly remember, I so wrote in the 

 American Bee Journal at the time, advising 

 all to remove the brace or burr combs from 

 the bottom of the supers, but not from the 

 frames. 



The next year I tried the same experiment 

 again, and so on for several years, until at 

 last I became thoroughly convinced that 

 these combs added largely to my crop of 

 comb honey by leading the bees into the 

 sections much sooner than they otherwise 

 would go. 



Now, some may say that it is of no use get- 

 ting the bees into the sections as soon as the 

 first honey comes in ; but I claim that this 

 has very much to do with our crop of comb 

 honey. It is not that the first three or four 

 pounds of honey stored in the sections could 

 be sold for so much cash that I wish it 

 placed in the sections, although that might 

 be quite an incentive where a person kept 

 500 colonies, the same amounting to about a 

 ton of honey in that case ; but all my past 

 experience teaches me that, for every pound 

 of honey stored in the brood-nest at the com- 

 mencement of the season, or honey harvest, 

 there will bo five pounds less stored in tlie 

 sections that year. Let the bees once com- 

 mence to store honey in the brood-nest thus 



early in the season, and they are loth to en- 

 ter the sections at all, and, instead of giving 

 us lots of section honey, they will keep 

 crowding the queen from the brood-cells 

 more and more, storing them full of honey, 

 until, when fall comes, we have little honey 

 for market, and our bees in poor shape for 

 winter. 



Then, again, these thick top-bars, which 

 are used to do away with these brace combs, 

 place a barrier between the brood combs be- 

 low and the sections above, instead of form- 

 ing ladders to lead the bees to the sections. 

 Who has not noticed that where an inch or 

 two of sealed honey intervened between the 

 brood in the hive and the tops of the frames, 

 that the bees were much more loth to go into 

 the sections immediately on the first appear- 

 ance of honey from the fields, than they 

 were when the brood came up all along the 

 top-bars of the frames ? This was one of 

 the claims for the contraction of brood 

 chambers in the interest of comb honey, that 

 where contraction was used the brood must 

 come close to the bottoms of the sections, 

 and, so coming, the bees were in the sec- 

 tions in a twinkling when the honey harvest 

 arrived. I doubt not but what all will be 

 free to admit that an inch of sealed comb 

 honey would be a better leader to the sec- 

 tions than an inch of wood, as is now pro- 

 posed. When we come to fully understand 

 this fact we shall see that, wherein these 

 brace combs are the means of having our 

 bees enter the section sooner, just in that 

 proportion are they of value to us. 



Try the experiment, brethren, and see if, 

 at the end of such a trial, you will not be 

 willing to put up with the inconvenience 

 they cause you, for the sake of their great 

 value." 



Bro. Doolittle may be correct. If the 

 space between the top bars and the supers is 

 very great, so great that the bees cannot 

 easily get into the supers, I suspect there is 

 something in what he has to say, but when 

 the space is only one-fourth of an inch it 

 does not seem as though the brace comb 

 would be an advantage. I one year ran out 

 of honey boards and was obliged to put a 

 dozen or more supers right down on top of 

 the brood frames, and 1 took particular no- 

 tice to see if the bees commenced work in 

 the supers any sooner, or if they stored any 

 more honey, and I could see no difference 

 until I came to take ofif the supers, and then 

 there was a " muss " between them and the 

 top bars, but no more honey in the sections. 

 If there is really any doubt on this subject, 

 it is another nut for our experiment stations 

 to crack. 



There is one point, however, upon which I 

 do agree with Bro. Doolittle, and that is the 

 importance of getting the bees to make an 

 early start in the sections, and it is possible 

 that with some of the hives in use, those in 



