10 
A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
bottom of the hive, the edge very dull and a perfectly straight 
line, and the outside part of the blade also ground to a straight 
line and at right angles with the edge. This right-angled 
corner is to clean out the corners of the hive, especially the 
rabbets. In cleaning, the hatchet is moved rapidly back and 
forth, or rather from side to side, the blade being held at 
right angles to the surface being cleaned. The weight of 
the hatchet is quite a help, something like a fly-wheel in 
machinery. The propolis is scraped out of the hive and 
especial pains taken to clean the rabbets. 
Having a hive ready, now for a seat. Bro. Doolittle once 
tried to poke a little fun at me in convention, because I acci- 
dentally admitted that I sat down to work at bees. If I were 
obliged to work all the season without a seat, I am afraid I 
would have to give up the business from exhaustion. More- 
over, if Ihadthe strength of aSamson I don’t think I should 
waste it stooping over hives, so long as I could get a seat. I 
generally have three or four seats about the apiary, and I 
just take fora seat a box in which 500 sections have been 
shipped, whittling a hole in it to carry it by. By placing it 
differently, it gives me a seat of three different heights, 
suitable for working at a one-story hive, or one with supers 
tiered up on it. 
Having placed my seat beside the hive to be overhauled, I 
put the empty hive beside it, the back end of the empty hive 
at the front end of the full hive, or else the front end of the 
empty hive at the back end of the full one. Lifting off the 
cover, I give one or two puffs of smoke at the entrance, then 
slowly peeling up the quilt with one hand, I blow a little 
smoke lightly, with the other, across the tops of the frames, 
not down into the cluster of bees. Still keeping the smoker 
in one hand, I pry up the frames at each end with a chisel 
made from an old file nearly a foot long; one end, the end I 
have just been using for prying loose the frames, being made 
square for about three inches of its length and brought to a 
blunt point, the other end like any cold-chisel, and about one 
inch wide. The frames will not need prying up again till 
