116 ONE YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 



tions are present. It is not necessary to wait until the outside sec- 

 tions of the super are sealed over, for the bees oftentimes refuse to do 

 this under any circumstances, and these can be put in the center of 

 the next crate advantageously, as explained above. 



If you have had some experience, you can judge pretty closely the 

 time when the honey season will close, and if nearing the end you must 

 think fast and work accordingly, or you will be left with quite a 

 quantity of unfinished sections to carry over to another year. Now is 

 the time to condense and get your sections nearest completed together 

 as much as possible, and get them on your best comb-honey-building 

 colonies. I say your best "comb-honey builders." Can there be a 

 difference in colonies like this? you ask. Yes, and all closely observ- 

 ing apiarists well know this, and know the colonies that they prefer to 

 put the finishing touches on comb honey. These colonies, like some 

 people, never stop until their work is completed ; they seal up their 

 honey as soon as the combs are full and the honey is ripe, while oth- 

 ers are slow to complete by sealing the combs, and especially when 

 nearing the end of the honey season, they seem to almost stop busi- 

 ness and let everything go wide open. But do not grieve over a lot 

 of unfinished sections, for if we are out the cash they would have 

 brought us at the present if finished, they are worth it all with good 

 interest to carry over for the purpose of giving us a good early start 

 with the next spring. 



In figure 14, 2 is a two-story hive as arranged for extracting. This 

 hive is better seen at 11, in figure 9. A hive for extracting is simply 

 two brood chambers. But we want the brood in the lower story, and 

 frames of comb for the surplus honey in the upper story. In figure 9, 

 6 shows the upper story as arranged for the extractor, with eight frames 

 of comb, one of the combs resting on top of hive. The hive standing 

 on end at the back, and marked 9, simply shows the bottom of a 

 hive, arid the manner the frames should hang thus evenly spaced to 

 insure good manipulation of the combs. 



THE EXTRACTOR. 



The extractor (fig. 15) was invented about the year 1865, but is yet 

 little known among the class of small bee-keepers. Scarcely any one 

 who keeps but a few colonies of bees thinks of getting an extractor. 

 This can also be set down safely as a mistake among the bee-keepers 

 on a small scale. I will say that any one having as many as five 

 colonies of bees will, with the use of an extractor, in one season get 

 by its use enough additional honey to pay for it. 



It has always been a query to many why extracted honey sells for 

 less than comb honey. This question has already been answered in 

 our discussion upon comb foundation. By the use of the extractor we 



