HIVE, AND HOW TO HANDLE IT 97 



and with dispatch, and without harming the indi- 

 viduals to shake the surprised little mob off the frame 

 or out of the boxes, to a place where its members 

 may recover shelter and equanimity as expe- 

 ditiously as possible. 



After the .comb is freed from the bees, it requires 

 some experience with honey-comb topography to 

 see at a glance just the condition of the brood. 

 There may be cells that look empty until a ray of 

 light reveals at the bottom a glistening egg; and 

 there may be cells with a little milky substance at the 

 bottom in which the young larva is floating; or in 

 some cells the bee grubs may be distinctly seen if 

 they, are four or five days old. If the cells are 

 capped, it may puzzle the novice to know what lies 

 behind that closed waxen door. If the cells con- 

 tain honey, the substance of which the cap is made 

 is whiter than that which covers the brood. In case 

 of worker-brood the cap is depressed slightly below 

 the plane of the comb, which is not the case if the 

 cells contain honey. The large size of the drone 

 cells distinguishes them readily from the cells of the 

 workers. Often honey is stored in drone cells, for 

 the bees seem to like to make these larger cells, and 

 for good reason, since they give greater storage 

 capacity for the amount of wax used. However, 

 the drone cells which contain brood are covered 

 with dark, dirty, yellow caps which are quite convex, 

 looking like kopjes on the comb plain. At the 

 height of the honey season there should be plenty 

 of brood, and later the cells in the brood-frames 



