192 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



colony has in some way lost its queen in the busy season, 

 and when the first reared young queen emerges — if one 

 is allowed to emerge — there will surely be a swarm is- 

 sue. Generally such a thing will be headed off before 

 the young queen has a chance to emerge, but once in a 

 great while she gets ahead of me." 



Although there is to me nothing entrancing in the 

 sight of such a swarm whirling through the air, there is 

 one thing I do very much enjoy in it — it is the sight of 

 the seething mass hurrying into the hive when dumped in 

 front of it, as in Fig. 69. You will see that a deep bot-- 

 tom-board has been placed in front of No. 32, on which 

 the swarm was dumped (it had previously settled on a 

 low plum tree), and the bees have flowed all over the 

 sides of the bottom-board, and also over the front of the 

 hive. But I don't want the distress of seeing them pour- 

 ing out of the hive in a swarm for the sake of the pleas- 

 ure of seeing them hustle back into the same hive when 

 dumped down in front of it. 



TAKING OFF SECTIONS. 



As fast as supers are filled they are taken off. I do 

 not think I could be bothered to take of? each section as 

 fast as finished, putting in an empty one to take its place. 

 It would take too much time. Neither do I like to wait 

 till every section in a super is entirely finished. Unless 

 the bees are crowded very much, there will be some un- 

 capped cells in the outside sections which the bees will 

 be very long in sealing. If these are waited for, the 

 central sections may lose a little of their snowy whiteness 

 — the thing which, perhaps, helps most to sell them. 



A super is, then, taken off when all but the outside 

 sections are finished. This can be pretty well told by 

 glancing over the top of the super, although sometimes 

 the sections may be all sealed at the upper part and hard- 



