140 



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BRACE-COMBS. 



The Objections to the Sectional 

 Hives Discussed. 



Written for the AmerlAnn Bee Journal 

 BY JAMES HEDDON. 



I quote the following from a letter 

 just received from one of New Eng- 

 land's brightest bee-keepers, and with- 

 hold the name because I have not the 

 writer's permission to publish it : 



Referring to the essay read by Dr. G. L. 

 Tinker, at the convention of Ohio bee- 

 keepers, regardina the sectional brood- 

 chamber, etc., will you please give, througli 

 the columns of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal, your answer to his statements ; es- 

 pecially where he says, "If tlie honey-flow 

 Is extra good, the bees proceed to fill up the 

 horizontal space between the two brood- 

 cases, with brace-combs, and till in with 

 honey?" We have not yet arrived at this 

 point. He seems to have given this style of 

 hive a black eye, so to speak, and if you 

 can give arty satisfactory answer to this 

 statement, we sliould be very glad to see it. 



Well, neither have I yet arrived at 

 the point in question. I can truthfully 

 state that during a four-years' use of 

 the hive, I have never met this brace- 

 comb trouble, and the following quo- 

 tations from Dr. Tinker's article on 

 page 154, of 1886, makes his essay 

 quite an enigma. I quote : 



But first, what is the most practical and 

 advantageous method of disposing of the 

 brood near the sections at will ? Beyond 

 question it is the proper management of the 

 shallow, sectional brood-chamber. Has it 

 any disadvantages ? We assert fearlessly 

 that it has not, neither in wintering, the 

 laying of the queen, nor in the manipula- 

 tion of hives or combs. 



In another place in that article we 

 find this : 



Again, as we shall not have occasion to 

 liandle the frames very much, but instead, 

 the sectional cases, it will not be greatly to 

 our advantage to have the frames as readily 

 movable as are the Langstrotli frames. On 

 this account, a very simple case is all that 

 is necessary to hold the frames. 



This was written after my new hive 

 was brought out, and in Mr. Root's 

 foot-notes to the article, he says : 



By the way, the Doctor's letter is a con- 

 sideration of the principles suggested by 

 friend Heddon, though he does not say so. 



No, my name was not mentioned, but 

 more than ignored, although nowhere 

 in all prior bee-literature, could one 

 word relative to these principles be 

 found. 



The honey season of 1886 was an ex- 

 tra good one in the Doctor's location, 

 he tells us, and after passing through 

 that good season, securing a large 

 yield of surplus comb honey, especially 

 over my divisible brood-chambers, as 

 he wrote me, he sent me the following 

 testimonial, dated Oct. 9, 1886 : 



I have been able the past season (which 

 has been extra good in tliis locality) to make 

 a full and, as 1 think, satisfactory trial of 



your new principles, in the use of 38 hives. 

 Your double brood-chamber of cases, made 

 so as to be interchangeable and invertible, 

 is a great success, in working for comb 

 honey. The facility for contracting and 

 expanding the brood-space is perfect, and 

 the advantages to be secured are so great 

 that the practical apiarist of to-day cannot 

 afford to dispense with the use of a system 

 so valuable.— Dr. G. L. Tinker. 



After carefullj- looking up the mat- 

 ter of the novelty of my invention, the 

 Doctor placed in his circular for 1887, 

 the following : 



The new system of management of sec- 

 tional bee-hives, recently introduced by Mr. 

 James Heddon, has wrought a great change 

 in the practice of many of our largest bee- 

 keepers — The justice of Mr. rieddon's 

 claims (of invention) have been generally 

 admitted, and all should recognize his 

 rights. 



Now if the brace-combs did not pre- 

 vent the Doctor from saying as above, 

 " The facility for contracting and ex- 

 panding the brood-space is perfect," 

 during a bountiful honey season, by 

 what hook or crook, or mistaken man- 

 agement, could he have experienced 

 all these brace-combs during the past 

 poor season ? This is the first reported 

 case of trouble of this kind, if I re- 

 member aright, and over 500 bee- 

 keeiDes have the new hives in use. 



But, as the correspondent says, the 

 Doctor gives the whole thing " a black 

 eye," and space forbids further re- 

 futations of his mistakes. They are 

 not such bad ones, however, as were 

 the " continuous passage-wa}'s." 



Here, we all believe we knew very 

 much about the functions of the style 

 of hive that the Doctor praises in Ids 

 essay in question. Before we finally 

 settled on the divisible brood-chamber, 

 and realizing that it would be cheaper 

 of construction, we made a single-case 

 brood-chamber on the same plan of 

 my present brood-cases, and while 1 

 much prefer it to the style of brood- 

 chamber described by the Doctor, 1 

 found that I lost the advantages of the 

 contraction system, rendered the shake 

 out function only partially operative, 

 as also the system of examining the 

 condition of the interior of the brood- 

 chamber, clipping out queen-cells, etc., 

 without exposure to robbers, or remov- 

 ing a frame ; and also that alternating 

 system, so truly and positively eulogized 

 by the Doctor in his former article. 1 

 found I could not aft'ord to use a brood- 

 chamber so small as the 8-frame Lang- 

 stroth brood-chamber during the 

 months of May and June, nor so large 

 as that during other portions of the 

 year. 



But as to the philosophy of the Doc- 

 tor's error regarding the impractica- 

 bility of the bee-space between the sec- 

 tions of my new brood-chamber, and 

 the practicability of piling one whole 

 brood-chamber on top of another, I am 

 sure all observing bee-keepers of any 



considerable experience will at once 

 recognize his mistake. Years of ex- 

 perience with both kinds of manipula- 

 tion have demonstrated to me what I 

 will now try to show the reasons for, 

 basing my deductions on well-known' 

 facts. 



Who does not know that bees build 

 most brace-combs through that portion 

 of the hive where storage is going on, 

 rather than breeding ? This is not all; 

 just as surely as bees store most readily 

 close to the brood, so of all places 

 where most brace-combs will be built 

 and stored with honey, none can com- 

 pare with just above the brood circle. 



As a rule, queens rarelj' breed clear 

 up to the top-bars of the Langstroth 

 frames, and the 10-inch Langstroth 

 hive exceeds all other depths for the 

 building of brace-combs between the 

 top-bars of the frames and honey-board, 

 or frames and surplus receptacles, 

 where no board is used. As hives in- 

 crease or deci'ease in depth, brace- 

 comb building grows less, and more 

 particularly is this the case as the 

 depth is lessened. 



When the brood-chamber is so shal- 

 low that the brood comes clear up to 

 the top-bars, and that, too, nearly 

 throughout their entire length, scarcely 

 any brace-combs are found between 

 them and the honey-board. 



But one writes me that he did have 

 lots of brace-combs built when he used 

 but half of the new brood-chamber, or 

 one brood-case. Certainly he did, be- 

 cause he contracted the brood-chamber, 

 and then did not correspondingly en- 

 large the surplus department. Con- 

 traction is intended to, and results in, 

 increased surplus comb-building, and 

 in case we do not give ample room in 

 the surplus department, the bees will 

 turn this newly-created tendencj- to 

 building brace-combs. 



Now if one should pile one Lang- 

 stroth brood-chamber upon another, 

 and let the bees alone, the bee-space 

 between them might not have as many 

 brace-combs in them as would be found 

 betM'een the sections of the new brood- 

 chamber, because almost double the 

 room is furnished in the former case. 

 But let us place two comb-honey cases 

 on the new brood-chamber, making 

 the total capacity the same, and then 

 compare, and ten times as many brace- 

 combs ■will be found between the two 

 brood-chambers. In other words, a 

 bee-space opened in the middle of the 

 brood-nest, is not nearlj' so likely to 

 be filled with brace-combs, as one 

 opened just above it, or in the surplus 

 department ; and I suppose that all 

 experienced bee-keepers know this. 



I have never had one particle of 

 trouble about alternating and separat- 

 ing the halves of mj' brood-chamber, 

 and I never before heard of any one 



