MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 211ceed. The way you speak of will work, for if you brush the beesoff close to the hive or several rods away, they will find their wayhome again, unless there be some bees on the section so youngthat 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 atthe bottom, and over the top spread a sheet or other coveringthat is bee-tight, but will let the light through. From time totime lift off the sheet and let the bees that are above escape, andin the course of a few hours all ought to be out. Whatever wayyou do, it is well to smoke down a good part of the bees beforeremoving the super; but don't be too lavish with your smoke orthe honey will taste of it, and smoke doesn't improve honey asmuch as it does ham.Sections Unfinished.—Q. What causes bees to leave a few sectionsof honey uncapped in the central part of a super all filledwith honey; plenty of bees and warm weather?A. There's a difference in nectar, some of it being ripened upmore slowly than the majority. It is just possible that when thebees commenced work in the supers, the central sections wereftlled with nectar of this kind, or with honey that possibly forsome other reason they were slow about sealing, and then therest of the super was filled with honey of a character to bepromptly sealed. Another possibility is that the central sectionswere in some way objectionable, possibly from having foundationor comb that had been used before and left too long in the careof the bees when not being filled, and so covered to some extentwith propolis. Still another possibility is that there was broodin the central sections; then, after the brood hatched out theywere filled with honey which, of course, would be later in beingsealed. Another possibility is that this was drone-comb and thebees left it without honey for a long time in the hope the queenwould find it and lay eggs in it.Q. If I use your plan of taking off honey, taking the filledand capped sections, are the unfinished ones returned to the samehive and in place of the ones taken out new sections put in, ordo you fill this super with other partly-filled sections taken fromanother hive?A. The unfinished sections from different hives are assembledinto one super, and then this super is put back, possibly on ahive from which none of the unfinished ones were taken, no attentionbeing given to where the sections came from.