32 FORTY YEARS AMONC THE BEES. 



ber — in fact there was no difiference whatever in the two 

 except that the bottom-board was nailed onto the brood- 

 chamber and an entrance cut into it. The super held 

 seven frames, and that made 56 sections in a super. 

 Lifting" these supers when they were filled was no child's 

 play, especially when loading' them on the wag'on at an 

 out-apiary, and unloading them at home, as I had to 

 do in later years. 



BROOD-COMBS AS BAITS. 



In order to start the bees promptly to work in the 

 sections, a frame of brood was raised from below, and 

 the sections facing this brood were occupied by the bees 

 at once if honey was coming in. Care had to be taken 

 not to leave the brood too long, for if the bees commenced 

 to seal the sections while it was there they would be 

 capped very dark, the bees carrying some of the old, 

 black comb over to the sections to be used in the capping. 



BEE-KEEPING SOLE BUSINESS. 



In 1878, at the close of the school year in June, I 

 decided to give up teaching for a time, and since that 

 time, more than 24 years ago, I have had no other busi- 

 ness but to work with bees, tmless it be to write about 

 them. 



In 1880 I began out-apiaries in a tentative sort of 

 way, a few bees in two out-apiaries. In March of that 

 year my wife died. When the bees were got into the 

 cellar for winter I closed up the house, took my boy with 

 me, and went to Johnstown, Pa., to spend the winter with 

 my sister, Mrs. Emma R. Jones. When I returned near 

 the close of the following April, deep snow-banks still 

 surrounded the house, and matters were in anything but 

 a happy condition in the cellar. 



