Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/144

110 honey-flow is great, even another super may be placed next the hive and below the other two. However, in our practice we rarely put on more than two, usually taking off the top one when we need to interpolate another. This process is called "storifying" in the English books, which is a most graphic term and should be introduced into our nomenclature.

TAKING OFF SECTIONS. (Plate XX.)

In taking off the sections we do not need to wait for the completion of every one in the super. The outside rows are rarely perfect, and we usually put these unfinished sections back on some other hive to be finished.

These unfinished sections, if not too empty, serve very well to sweeten the daily bread of the home table. If sent to the market they bring low prices, and the bee-keeper who is working for comb-honey should plan to have as few of them as possible. While the honey left long in the super has a much finer flavour than that which is removed early, yet care should be taken not to leave the sections on the hive so long that the comb becomes soiled. It is an interesting fact that honey ripened in the hive gains special richness, as if it were somehow imbued with the spirit of the little socialists that make it.

Toward the end of the season it is best not to tier up, but to place an empty super on top. The bees will not use it unless necessary, but will devote their energies to the sections below. The great danger