SUPERS AND SUPEKING. 81 



the other. The combs are kept apart by little bits of wax 

 or wood ; the lids are put on before they are placed on 

 full hives. When filled with honey thoy are taken off, 

 and other empty ones are used in the same way and 

 placed on the same hives. 



The reader is now asked to take another look at the 

 improved honey-glass. It is narrow at bottom and wider 

 higher up. The lid is movable. It will be seen at once 

 how easy it will be to help the bees to fiU this kind of 

 super. When one of these empty glasses is placed on a 

 fuU hive, we take the lid off and place at once some 

 empty pieces of drone-comb on the crown of the hive 

 inside the glass, and hold them erect and in proper posi- 

 tion by wedges or little bits of comb. The lid is put on, 

 and the super is thickly and warmly covered with cotton- 

 wool or woollen cloths. In a short time the bees adopt 

 and fasten the combs thus put in. " Why, these combs 

 are 6 inches high to begin with, and the bees are building 

 them upwards ! " In filling very large glass supers (now 

 called crystal palaces), to hold, say, from 50 to 100 lb. 

 of comb, we remove the glass lidg, and put in their places 

 wooden or straw ones, with combs attached and pending. 

 Thus the bees have combs artificially fixed from both top 

 and bottom to unite and fiU ; and, when weather permits, 

 they do it with marvellous dexterity and rapidity. When 

 these supers are fiUed, the most expert apiarian or dealer 

 in honey could not detect a flaw in them. Supers so 

 filled are perfect in every sense, and cannot be surpassed 

 for excellence by those which may be fiUed by bees man- 

 aged on the old jog-trot system. 



When the combs are well united and the supers nearly 

 fuU, the wooden lids are cnt off with a table-knife or bit 

 of fine wire, and the glass ones put on. If the lids are 

 dome-shaped, with a cavity to fill, a few pieces of nice 

 Bomb may be placed on the tops of those broken by the 



