158 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



to take them back home with me, and they are put in piles and 

 covered up in the hope that they may be used the next time. 

 3ut there is. some danger of their being affected by rain when 

 piled up at the out-apiary, so there is trouble either way. On 

 the whole it is better to take too many than too few, and so 

 there are generally some extra ones at the out-apiaries. 



To take supers to the out-apiaries, they are piled up on 

 the waMn in five piles, a lath is nailed from top to bottom on 

 each pile, and they are braced on top with lath (Fig. 64). 

 Fifty empty supers can be taken at a load, but it is not often 

 that as many as forty filled supers are taken at a load. 



ADDING SUPERS UNDER OR OVER. 



As the harvest advances I am more.jQha^j about giving 

 room, and it is given only when the sections already on are 

 pretty well filled. Suppose toward the last of the season I 

 come to a colony that has its sections nearly all filled. There 

 is a possibility that the bees may be able to finish up what they 

 have and a few more in an additional super, but the great 

 probability is that they will do no more than to finish what 

 they have. Although that probability inay amount to almost 

 a certainty, I do not act upon it, but go for the possibility and 

 give the extra super. But I put it on top of the others, so 

 that the bees will not commence work in it unless actually 

 crowded into it. '» 



■ During the early part of the harvest, so lotg as there is a 

 reasonable expectation that each additional super wUl be 

 needed, the empty super is put under the others, next to the 

 brood-chamber. Work will commence in it more promptly 

 than when an empty super is placed on top, and that greater 

 promptness in occupying the new super may be the straw to 

 turn the scale on the side of keeping down the desire for 

 swarming. But when a super is put on toward the close of 

 the season, not because it seems really needed, but as a sort of 

 safety valve in case it might be needed, I do not wish to do 

 anything to coax the bees into it, so it is put on top, and the 

 bees can do as they please about entering it. It is true that 

 if an empty super is put under the others at a time when the 

 harvest is nearing its close, the bees may not do a thing in it, 



