94 
FOLLOWING THE BEE LINE 
of the most undiluted vicious strain that I ever 
encountered. A year previously somebody had 
attempted to get them out but had not gone farther 
than to rip off the boards of the ceiling, directly 
above the window, and right below the colony. 
They had not been put back, and consequently the 
colony had elongated its combs until they hung 
down about eight inches into the room in front of 
the window. As nobody dared cut off these combs 
and nail the board back in place, the room could 
not be used and the door had to be kept care¬ 
fully closed. 
Even though the proprietor seldom dared enter 
the room, he took a proprietary interest in his insect 
lodgers and had become inoculated with the bee¬ 
keeping fever. He wanted not only to have the 
use of an extra room but to have the bees on the 
ground in a modern hive and to be a beekeeper 
himself. So I accepted his request and, with him 
as an assistant, started to extricate the bees and 
combs. 
But, smoke them from below and rap the boards 
above as I might, I could not get them to stir off 
from their combs—it being so much harder to drive 
bees down than up. Therefore the combs had to 
be cut out as they were, with all the bees on them. 
