FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 1A9 



the hope that they may be used the next time. But there is some 

 danger of their being affected by rain when piled up at the out- 

 apiary, so there is trouble either way. On the whole it is better 

 to take too many than too few, and so there are generally some 

 extra ones at the out-apiaries. 



To take supers to the out-apiaries, they are piled up on the 

 wagon in five piles, a lath is nailed from top to bottom on each 

 pile, and they are braced on top with lath (Fig. 64). Fifty 

 empty supers can be taken at a load, but it is not often that as 

 many as forty filled supers are taken at a load. 



ADDING SUPERS UNDER OR OVER. 



As the harvest advances I am more chary about giving 

 room, and it is given only when the sections already on aie 

 pretty well filled. Suppose toward the last of the season I come 

 to a colony that has its sections nearly all filled. There is a 

 possibility that the bees may be able to finish up what they have 

 and a few more in an additional super, but the great probability 

 is that they will do no more than to finish what they have. Al- 

 though that probability may amount to almost a certainty, I do 

 not act upon it, but go for the possibility and give the extra 

 super. But I put it on top of the others, so that the bees will 

 not commence work in it unless actually crowded into it. 



During the early part of the harvest, so long as there is a 

 reasonable expectation that each additional super will be need- 

 ed, the empty super is put under the others, next to the brood- 

 chamber. Work will commence in it more promptly than when 

 an empty super is placed on top, and that greater promptness 

 in occupying the new super may be the straw to turn the scale 

 on the side of keeping down the desire for swarming. But 

 when a super is put on toward the close of the season, not 

 because it seems really needed, but as a sort of safety-valve in 

 case it might be needed, I do not wish to do any thing to coax 

 the bees into it, so it is put on top, and the bees can do as they 

 please about entering it. It is true that if an empty super is 

 put under the others at a time when the harvest is nearing its 

 close, the bees may not do a thing in it, but merely go up and 

 down through it and keep to work in the super above. But it 



