26 DR. miller's 
Brace-Comb. — Q. What is a burr-comb? What is a bracc- 
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 throjyn 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, 
(he/ are bound to take up some of the honey before they can do 
