368 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



times the clover harvest will close not much after the middle of 

 Juae, while other years it may continue until the close of July. 

 Sometimes the honey flow will let up as if about to close, then a 

 few days later begin again. If linden trees are in fair numbers in 

 your locality, you may count on their helping out the harvest during 

 the first two weeks in July, or somewhere in that neighborhood. 

 But, like clover, linden may vary very much in the length of its yield, 

 and some years it does not yield at all. 



TAKING OFF SURPLUS. 



Comb honey is valued very much according to its appearance. To 

 bring the highest price in the market, the comb must be snow-white. 

 If it is left in the care of the bees after it is sealed, it will become 

 gradually darkened on the surface. This does not hurt the honey 

 itself that is in the comb; on the contrary the honey generally tastes 

 better for being left in the hive all summer; and if it w^ere to be 

 eaten in the dark it would be well not to be in a hurry about taking 

 it off. But to get sections off the hive with the whitest of combs, 

 you must not even wait until all are sealed. If you wait until the sec- 

 tions at the outside corners are sealed, you may find that those in 

 the center have become darkened. So soon as all but the corner 

 sections are sealed, take off the super. If you have a number of 

 supers taken off, you may take out the unfinished sections, put them 

 all in an empty super, and put them back on the hive to be finished. 



Taking ofif a super is a very simple matter; getting the bees all 

 out is another story. If you have a Porter bee escape, put it at 

 night under the super (the filled super to be taken off must be on 

 top of all), and by morning very few bees will be left, when the 

 super can be taken off. A super may be put in a tub or a big box, 

 a sheet covered over it, and from time to time as the bees gather 

 on the sheet, it can be turned over. Look out that you do not 

 leave a hole for robber bees to get at the honey. 'A good many 

 of the bees will leave the super and go below if you blow smoke 

 into the super lively for two or three minutes before taking it 

 off. If you are in a hurry to finish up the job, you may smoke 

 all the bees out of the super after you have taken it off, brushing 

 the bees off the super and sections as they come out. There is 

 just a little danger that too much smoke may give a slight taste 

 to the honey. At a time when bees are very busy gathering, you 

 may set a super on top of a hive or beside it, and in the course of half 

 an hour the bees will have left the super of their own accord. But 

 it is a very risky thing to do this unless you keep a pretty close 

 watch for the very first approach of robber bees. 



