A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
51 
to prevent too great heat in the brood-chamber. There is, 
however, a rather serious objection to this open space : the 
bees do not work well in the back row of sections, being, I 
suppose, too cool. I improved upon this, somewhat, by making 
the honey-boards so that they are closed for about 3 inches of 
their length at the back end, and if I favored natural swarm- 
ing, I am not sure but I would dispense with this top venti- 
lation. 
It may have occurred to you that the vacant space under 
the honey-board would be occupied by the bees, and that 
they would 1111 it up with comb. It seems as if they would, 
but they do not; at least not one in a hundred. Perhaps one 
reason is that they have plenty of room above ; and another, 
that this vacancy is too open to be warm enough. The hive, 
being wider than the super, there is an open space, at the 
side, of 2 y % inches. 
STARTING BEES IN SECTIONS. 
The honey-board being on, the super fits exactly upon it. 
In order to have the bees commence the sooner in the sec- 
tions, I put a bait in the super. I take out one of the middle 
sections, and put in its place a section containing some 
honey. Sometimes I get this bait by taking from a hive a 
super that has honey already stored in some or all of its 
sections, putting in bees and all. There are, however, 
usually, some sections left over from the previous year, that 
are partly filled. These make excellent bait. If they are 
partly sealed, as they usually are, I uncap them, so that the 
bees may cap them afresh. Almost surely, the bees will at 
once empty these sections ; and just as surely, they will 
immediately commence to fill them up again. The super is 
covered over with the quilt or cloth and the hive-cover put 
over this. Neither of these two are satisfactory. The hive- 
cover i» too large for the super, and the quilt lies down in 
just the best possible shape to induce the bees to plaster a 
quantity of propolis all over the sections. I suspect it would 
