FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



143 



The plan used is the invention of my assistant, and I think I 

 cannot do better than to let her tell about it by eopyini;' tlie 

 followiBg article which she wrote for Gleanings in Bee Culture; 

 "When we commenced work in the shop, the first super I 

 filled with the nice clean sections, I looked at the T tins all 

 covered with propolis and thought to myself: 'If we are to have 

 sections unstained by propolis it will never Jo to jnit them on 

 these dirtj' T tins. But, oh dear! it will be an endless task to 

 scrape them all. 1 can never do it. Just then a liajiiiy thought 



Fig. 44 — Watering-crook. 



sti-uck me. Why not boil the propolis off? Sure enough, why 

 not? 



"T repaired to the kitchen, placed the wash-boiler on the 

 stove (one we use for such work), filled it witli water and T 

 tins, then went back to the shop to work, and left them to boil 

 at their own sweet will, delighted to think I had such an in- 

 spiration. In about an hour I went back to the kitchen to see 

 how my T tins were progTessing. I fully expected to see them 

 all nice and clean, and was most bitterly disappointed to find 

 that they looked even worse than they did when I put them in, 

 as the propolis was more evenly distributed all over them, 



