A YEAR'S WORK IN AN OUT-APIART 47 



this case this top super was of no value, as the season was so poor 

 that the hees did no work in It. However, in this race for honey we 

 can not tell how things are going to turn out, and I hold to the idea 

 that it is always better to do a little work for naught than to have a 

 loss of ten to twenty-flve pounds of honey from each colony through 

 any inattention of mine. Forty minutes to an hour suflSced for all that 

 was necessary to be done at this time, and the whole gave me an excuse 

 for an enjoyable outing with the auto. This was visit No. 8. If greatly 

 pressed for time, this visit could be dispensed with without experiencing 

 any great loss in honey in the average year. 



CHAPTER IX. 



A SIMPLE WAT TO PUT ON ESCAPES WITHOUT LIFTING. 



It is now September 8th, and the honey season for 1905 is ended, 

 as no surplus is ever secured in this locality from fall flowers. And It 

 has been one of the most singular seasons I have ever known as to 

 poor weather at the time of the blossoming of our honey-producing flora. 

 It was mostly wet, cool, or very windy, during the time of clover, bass- 

 wood, and buckwheat bloom, our three resources for surplus honey, and 

 quite generally fine and warm outside the time they were in bloom. 

 We often have poor bee weather during the time one of these sources 

 for honey is in bloom, and once or twice I have known it thus during 

 two of the sources of supply; but to have it poor during all three puts 

 the season of 1905 at the top, along the line of bad weather, during the 

 expected harvests from all sources, and giving it the name of the "poor- 

 est season ever known" among my bee-keeping neighbors. Enough thin 

 nectar was gathered to keep their bees rearing an abundance of brood, 

 resulting in much swarming, and hives light in stores tor winter; but 

 the surplus crop with them was very meager. 



USE OF THE WEDGE BETWEEN SUPER AND EXCLUDER BOABI). 



I now go to the out-apiary for the ninth visit, and the chief work at 

 this time is to put an escape-board between the brood-chamber and the 

 supers of the whole twenty-eight colonies. To do this best, one of the 

 escape-boards is placed by the side of each hive, before 1 commence. 



