116 HAKDY BOOK OF BEES. 



can be lifted off and on -without breaking a single cell. 

 Tiie combs can tben be cut out from the top. 



When supers are full, the sooner they are taken off the 

 better. They are severed from their hives by drawing a 

 piece of fine wire or string between them. Of course this 

 wire cuts every ceU in its way, leaving the cut parts wet 

 with honey. In order that these cut wet parts may be 

 quite clean and dry when the supers are taken off, we 

 raise them three-eighths of an inch by wedges, so that the 

 bees can more easily lick up the honey from the broken 

 ceUs. They do this very cleanly in about one hour. 

 Some people leave them on the hives for ten or twelve 

 hours after they have been cut and raised. 'No harm 

 can be done by letting them remain twelve hours, if the 

 bees do not begin to carry the honey doion-stairs — that is, 

 out of the supers into the hives. 



There is sometimes a little difficulty experienced in 

 getting the bees to leave the supers. Our best friend 

 and greatest helper in this work is the old corduroy, the 

 smoke of which should be blown vigorously into the super 

 from the top before it is lifted from the hive. The bees 

 are thus hastily driven down below. The super should 

 be removed at once to a place where bees cannot come to 

 steal. 



Glass supers require a good deal of warm clothing while 

 being filled, for the bees like both warmth and darkness. 

 Bees wiU not build combs in glass supers, or even remain 

 in them, if they are not warmly covered. 



