78 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



my use, because, forsooth, it doesn't suit an uncapper? Yet I 

 must say I am very skeptical as to the objections to metol 

 spacers on even extracting frames. The spacers are only at one 

 end of the frame at each side, and if the knife starts at the 

 spacer-end it does not seem necessary to dull it on the spacers. 

 I have tried it enough to form something of an opinion, and I 

 have been told by those who ought to know that the objection 

 is a thing largely of imagination. 



Fig. 26 — Pounding Bees Off Comb. 



END-SPACING. 



The end-spacing is done by means of the usual frame 

 staple, about three-eighths of an inch wide. The staple is driven 

 into the end-bar, immediately under the Ing of the top-bar. 

 This lug being only half an inch long, there is room for a bee 

 to pass between the end of the lug and the upper edge of the 

 hive-end, so no propolis is deposited there. I like this feature 

 as much as some dislike it. They complain that with so short a 

 top-bar the frames drop down in the hive — a nuisance not to be 

 tolerated. I do not have that trouble, although the hold of the 

 top-bar on the tin support is so slight that if the work were 

 not exact I can easily imagine the frames dropping down. 



