AT WORK. 53 



in a comb-carrier placed handy to receive it. Then 

 another comb was taken, and so on until all had 

 been fitted into frames. The old hives were about 

 twenty inches high, and were filled with comb to the 

 bottom. My frames were about 10^ inches square 

 inside measure, hence after filling a frame with the 

 top part of one of the old combs there was a piece 

 left nearly large enough to fill another frame. At 

 this early period of the year these lower ends of the 

 old combs have neither brood nor honey. I care- 

 fully put them into frames and stored them away 

 for future use. Thus I had a full frame and a 

 frame nearly full from each of the old combs. 

 There was plenty of honey in the hive for all possi- 

 ble needs of the bees, and towards the tops of the cen- 

 tral combs there was a fine patch of brood, some of 

 it already sealed and hatching, so that from this 

 first old hive I got five frames of brood. In taking 

 the hive to pieces one comb had become badly 

 broken, this with all the trimmings and crooked 

 pieces of comb were carefully put aside. I took 

 pains to sort the comb as much as possible, putting 

 the worker comb in frames separate from the drone 

 comb. Of course it was not always possible to 

 avoid having the two kinds of comb in the same 

 frame, but I made as many frames of almost pure 

 worker comb as somewhat rapid working on my 

 part would allow. From this hive I filled ten frames 

 full, and had six frames nearly full. 



