26 DR. miller's 



Brace-Comb.— Q. What is a burr-comb? What is a Urace- 

 comb? 



A. The terms "burr" and "brace" are used somewhat indis- 

 criminately, "burr" more properly referring to bits of comb built 

 over the top-bar or elsewhere, perhaps without connecting two 

 parts together; and "brace" being used to designate bits built be- 

 tween frames or combs, thus serving to brace them. 



Brood Carried Out.— Q. I have 13 colonies and there are five 

 of them that are carrying out brood almost ready to hatch. What 

 is the trouble, and how can I prevent or remedy it? 



A. Late in the season drone-brood will be thrown out at a 

 time when bees kill off drones. A very few specimens of such 

 brood thrown out at any time may have no special significance. 

 There are other causes. In the spring of the year the bees are 

 likely to use large quantities of stores in rearing brood, and it 

 generally takes several years for a beginner to learn that unless 

 they have a big lot of honey on hand there is danger of starva- 

 tion. You have on hand, perhaps, a plain case of starvation, and 

 of course there is just one way to prevent or cure, and that is to 

 feed. Occasionally a very fertile queen will lay faster than her 

 small colony can care for the brood. Cold, raw days may chill 

 brood not properly covered. This brood will die and be carried 

 out. These instances are rather rare, and the amount of chilled 

 brood is usually small. 



Brood-Chamber Clogged With Honey. — Q. "Why don't bees 

 go into supers?" Brood-chambers are clogged with brood and 

 honey, and "nothing doing" in the supers. Advice given is to un- 

 cap the honey in the brood-chamber. Most of the sections have 

 bait-comb in them. I have no uncapper, so I have run a hook 

 over the capped honey and considerably disturbed it. Now, how 

 about being as sure as possible that in these hives with clogged-up 

 brood-frames (with honey) there will be enough bees growing in 

 September or August so as to have the colonies winter all right? 

 Is there such trouble in producing extracted honey? What had I 

 better do? 



A. Running a hook over the sealed surface ought to have 

 somewhat the same effect as uncapping, but is probably not as 

 good. If you have no regular uncapping-knife, a common butcher- 

 knife will do fairly well. When the surface has merely been 

 scratched I have known the bees to repair the capping, not taking 

 up any of the honey. But if the knife cuts down to the honey, 

 they are bound to take up some of the honey before they can do 



