FIFTY TEARS AMONG THE BEES 259 



board and the other over the upper board he turns the whole 

 upside down, the super resting on one end on the table as he 

 turns it over. The knife and sandpaper now do their work on 

 the tops of the sections. Then the wedges are taken out, the 

 box removed, and the boardful of sections is slid along the 

 table to the one who is scraping. Thid table, which is very con- 

 venient, is 8 ft. long and 3 ft. 9 in. wide. 



PINAL SCRAPING OP SECTIONS. 



Miss Wilson generally does all the scraping ; that is, all the 

 scraping besides what Philo has done, and sometimes his part, 

 as in rig. 98. She sometimes scrapes on a board on her lap, 

 but usually on one of the small tables heretofore mentioned 

 (Fig. 99). If the section should rest upon the table, the knife 

 used in scraping could not freely reach the lowest parts, so a 

 loose block lies on the board, on which the sections rest. An- 

 other advantage of the block is that the accumulation of propo- 

 Ks is not so much in the way. The size of this block is not ma- 

 terial; it may be an inch thick, four inches long or longer, and 

 two inches wide or wider. The block could be nailed down, but 

 it is more convenient to have it loose, so as to scrape the propo- 

 lis off the table from time to time. The scrapings have gen- 

 erally been thrown away, but with a steam wax-press it may 

 pay well to get the wax out of it. Possibly propolis may yet be 

 a marketable commodity. 



The knife used is a steel case-knife kept very sharp. The 

 sides and edges of the sections are to be scraped, and, if neces- 

 sary, sandpaper follows the knife. The finishing touches are 

 put on Philo's work, knife-marks, pencil-marks, and any dis- 

 colored spots being carefully removed. 



If it is cool enough, so that the bee-glue is brittle instead 

 of being sticky, then sandpaper replaces the knife. The sand- 

 paper is not rubbed upon the section, but the section is rubbed 

 upon a sheet of sandpaper lying flat. This makes more rapid 

 work than the knife, especially in scraping the edges, for four 

 edges are sandpapered at one operation. 



A scraper should be a careful person, or in ten minutes' 

 time he will do more damage than his day's work is worth. 

 Even a careful person seems to need to spoil at least one sec- 



