76 PROFITABLE BEE-KEEPING 
tractor will be a part of the work which has to 
be done at this period, and this is a fruitful cause 
of robbing. The supers of wet combs must be 
placed on the hives at nightfall, and care taken to 
see that no bees can effect an entrance from the 
outside. The combs may be allowed to remain on 
the hives for a week, at the expiration of which 
they may be removed and stored away. 
It is recommended that this ‘‘cleaning-up” of 
wet combs should be entrusted to one or two 
colonies, as by this means there is not so much 
danger of distributing disease germs.. The usual 
method is to give the combs back to the colony 
from which they were taken, but it must not be 
forgotten that such combs have usually followed 
others through the wet cages of an extractor. 
Where the extracting is done by taking one colony 
at a time, and cleaning the extractor for each, I 
would allow each colony to clean its own combs, 
but not ‘otherwise. 
We are speaking now of an apiary in which 
there is no known disease. It is only to such 
apiaries that the above remarks apply. Where 
any mild cases of foul-brood exist—a few infected 
cells, say, here and there—the honey from such 
stocks must be treated quite as a thing apart. In 
such cases extract the honey from the healthy 
colonies, and finish with the others, finally dis- 
infecting the extractor. 
