HIPTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 255 



being repeated two or three weeks later. I suppose I should 

 now prefer bisulphide of carbon to hulphur for fumigation, but 

 for several years I have not found it necessary to fumigate. 

 Tormerly the larvse of the bee-moth would make bad work if 

 fumigation were omitted, and sometimes in spite of it, but now 

 there is no trouble. I don't know what makes the difference, 

 unless it be that formerly there was so large a per cent of black 

 blood in my bees. 



When the time does come for taking the sections all out of 

 the supers, the work is gone at in earnest and continued until 

 all the marketable sections are in their shipping-cases ready 

 for market. It wiU be understood that all supers taken off be- 

 fore the last have been handled as heretofore mentioned, the 

 marketable sections having all been piled up in the honey-room 

 and the others returned as " go-backs," and the last lot taken off 

 will consist of every sort, from foundation untouched by the 

 bees up to sections entirely filled and sealed. 



SORTING THE SECTIONS. 



Philo sorts the sections into four classes as he takes them 

 out, although some supers are assigned to one class or another 

 without being taken out, because all in the super are of one 

 kind. One lot consists of dry sections, or those in which the 

 foundation either has not been touched by the bees, or else has 

 been drawn out so little that no drop of honey has been put in 

 it. These are put in a pile by themselves. 



FEEDER SECTIONS. 



The second lot consists of those which ha\'e just a few 

 drops of honey in them, up to those which are not more than 

 half filled. Some entire supers will be assigned to the first or 

 second lot without being taken out of the super at all. When a 

 super feels pretty light, it is inspected v/ith some care by look- 

 ing through it from the under side. If it is found that there 

 is no honey in any section in the super, it goes to the dry pile 

 without any taking out. If there is honey in the super, but 

 no section in it inore than half filled, it goes to the second pile 

 without being emptied, even if there is only one section in the 



