134 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



The plan used is the invention of my assistant, and I think I 

 cannot do better than to let her tell about it by copying the 

 following article which she wrote for Gleanings in Bee Culture: 

 " When we commenced work in the shop, the first super I 

 filled with the nice clean sections, I looked at the T tins all 

 covered with propolis and thought to myself, ' If we are to have 

 sections unstained by propolis it will never do to put them on 

 these dirty T tins. But, oh dear ! it will be an endless task to 



Fig. 44 — Watering-crock. 



sfiape them all. I can never do it.' Just then a happy thought 

 struck me. Why not boil the propolis off? Sure enough, why 

 not? 



" I repaired to the kitchen, placed the wash-boiler on the 

 stove (one we use for such work), filled it with water and T 

 tins, then went back to the shop to work, and left them to boil 

 at their own sweet will, delighted to think I had such an inspir- 

 ation. In about an hour I went back to the kitchen to see how 

 my T tins were progressing. I fully expected to see them all 

 nice and clean, and was most bitterly disappointed to find that 

 they looked e\en worse than they did when I put them in, as the 

 propolis was more evenly distributed all over them. 



