'THOUSAND ANSWERS 
211 
ceed. The way you speak of will work, for if you brush the bees 
off close to the hive or several rods away, they will find their way 
home again, unless there be some bees on the section so young 
that they have never left the hive — a thing not likely to happen. 
Another way is to pile up several supers in a pile, bee-tight at 
the bottom, and over the top spread a sheet or other covering 
that is bee-tight, but will let the light through. From time to 
time lift off the sheet and let the bees that are above escape, and 
in the course of a few hours all ought to be out. Whatever way 
you do, it is well to smoke down a good part of the bees before 
removing the super; but don’t be too lavish with your smoke or 
the honey will taste of it, and smoke doesn’t improve honey as 
much as it does ham. 
Sections Unfinished. — Q. What causes bees to leave a few sec- 
tions of honey uncapped in the central part of a super all filled 
with honey; plenty of bees and warm weather? 
A. There’s a difference in nectar, some of it being ripened up 
more slowly than the majority. It is just possible that when the 
bees commenced work in the supers, the central sections were 
filled with nectar of this kind, or with honey that possibly for 
some other reason they were slow about sealing, and then the 
rest of the super was filled with honey of a character to be 
promptly sealed. Another possibility is that the central sections 
were in some way objectionable, possibly from having foundation 
or comb that had been used before and left too long in the care 
of the bees when not being filled, and so covered to some extent 
with propolis. Still another possibility is that there was brood 
in the central sections; then, after the brood hatched out they 
were filled with honey which, of course, would be later in being 
scaled. Another possibility is that this was drone-comb and the 
bees left it without honey for a long time in the hope the queen 
would find it and lay eggs in it. 
Q. If I use your plan of taking off honey, taking the filled 
and capped sections, are the unfinished ones returned to the same 
hive and in place of the ones taken out new sections put in, or 
do you fill this super with other partly-filled sections taken from 
another hive? 
A. The unfinished sections from different hives are assem- 
bled into one super, and then this super is put back, possibly on a 
hive from which bone of the unfinished ones were taken, no at- 
tention being given to where the sections came from. 
