A YEAR'S WORK IN AN OUT-APIARY 



37 



with a load of supers, with me. As the basswood is now nearing full 

 bloom I am hoping for better weather, the same as the farmers are, 

 who, all along the road, are opening out their hay, which "got caught" 

 out in the rain. Arriving, I find the bees rushing out of and into the 

 hives, almost like mad in their wild scramble for the basswood nectar, 

 which, to me, seems so thin that it is hardly worth the gathering, 

 owing to the bloom having been kept wet continually for the past sixty 

 hours. While the "scramble" for this thin basswood nectar is just as 

 great as was that for clover nectar at my last visit, yet the number of 

 bees going into and out of the entrances to the hives has lessened some- 

 what, owing to the death by old age of quite a number of bees which 

 were on the stage of action at the time the colonies were "swarmed," 

 while, as yet, none of the emerging bees are quite old enough to become 

 field workers. 



The first work is to look after these thirteen colonies, so that, 

 should there be any supers ready to come off, they can be put on escape- 



doolittle's scheme of tjsinq a wheelbabbow to save heavy lifting. 



boards the first thing, this giving the bees time to leave the sections 

 so these filled supers can be carried home with me. I find that each one 

 of the thirteen has one super fully completed, ready to take off; and 

 several of them have a second super nearly so; but as I wish to take 

 oft no sections not fully sealed over, at this time in the white-honey 

 harvest, these nearly filled supers are allowed to remain on the hive. 

 The taking-off at this time is done thus: 



