A YEAR'S WORK IN AN OUT-APIARY 49 



board. Quickly go to the front, catch the chisel end of the spring under 

 the escape-board, with the other hand at the back, on top of the cover; 

 bear down on the spring so as to make a fulcrum of the hive below, 

 at the same time pulling with the top hand, when the board with Its 

 load of supers Is quickly and easily brought completely over the top 

 of the hive. If a sort of rocking motion is given to the piece of wagon- 

 spring when bearing down, it will facilitate matters much, especially 

 where there is a heavy load of supers or hives to go on the escape-board. 

 The heavy end of the wedge takes that to the ground and out of the 

 way, immediately upon the lifting of the super, so neither of the hands 

 is obliged to touch it, thus saving one motion when we are in a hurry 

 to get what is needed done before the bees realize what our interference 

 means. The wedge should be made of some kind of hard wood, and 

 be polished smooth. Otherwise it will "broom" up from the heavy pres- 

 sure that is brought to bear on it in handling supers or heavy hives, 

 three or four stories high, which are filled with honey. In this way 

 I have put the supers in a whole apiary on the escape-boards without 

 killing scarcely a bee or arousing the anger of a single colony. It has 

 taken some time to tell this in writing; but when the "trick" is once 

 learned, it takes but a moment to do it, and that with an ease which 

 seems like magic, even with three or four filled supers on the hives. 

 This is one of the easy "short cuts" I use when taking off supers at 

 the end of the season. An editor of one of the bee papers, after seeing 

 me put on escape-boards in this way, wrote a friend about it in these 

 words: "It was a caution with what speed and dexterity he could 

 manipulate the hives and supers. With his practice and skill he killed 

 very few bees, and he did not irritate them either." 



I have dwelt on this because It saves so much of the labor and 

 backache required with the usual ways of clearing the supers of bees 

 when taking off honey, at the end of the season. After the whole are 

 treated in this way I am off for home, as "this is all there is to be done 

 at this visit, this being the ninth in number since we commenced 

 operations in the spring. 



CHAPTER X. 



TAKING OFF THE HONEY AND ST0EIN6 IT AT THE OUT-TABD. 



From two to four days later, in accord with the weather, I go again, 

 the same making the tenth visit, when the supers are taken off, free from 

 bees. I said, "According to the weather," for the reason that a hot, 

 clear day is not suited for the work we must do at this time, when 

 there is no honey coming In from the fields. Robber bees would drive 

 us home long before we could get the work done. The day desired is a 

 cool cloudy one — one so much so that It will keep the bees in their 



