The bars composing frames are usually made seven-eighths inch wide, although some prefer to have the top bar 1 inch or even 1⅛ inches wide, and the bottom bar is made by some as narrow as live-eighths inch or even three-eighths inch square. The narrower bottom bar, at least down to a width of five eighths inch, renders the removal of the frames less difficult, and bees are brushed off a little more easily; but when combs cut from box hives are to be fitted into the frames it is not quite so easy to hold the pieces in the center of the frame by means of transferring sticks and get the bees to fasten them securely at the bottom as it is with full seven-eighths-inch bottom bars. Top bars have been made by some hive manufacturers from one-fourth-inch to three-eighths-inch strips, strengthened somewhat by a very thin strip placed edgewise on the underside as a comb guide; but such bars are much too light and will sag when filled with honey or with brood and honey, and when section holders or other receptacles for surplus honey or sets of combs are placed above them more than a bee space exists between the upper and lower sets of frames or between the section holder and the frames below, and the bees will fill in with bits of comb between these, making it difficult to remove the top story or any of the combs from it; indeed, an attempt under such circumstances to remove combs from the top story generally results in tearing the frames apart and breaking the combs, and if honey leaks out robbing may be induced at some times of the year, all because of an error in construction. [Illustration: Fig. 24.--Langstroth frame; size, 17⅝ in. by 9⅛ in. outside; _pn_, projecting nail. (Original.)] [Illustration: Fig. 25.--Form in which to nail frames: _b_, button; _db_, double button. (Original.)]