and with dispatch, and without harming the individuals to shake the surprised little mob off the frame or out of the boxes, to a place where its members may recover shelter and equanimity as expeditiously as possible.
After the comb is freed from the bees, it requires some experience with honey-comb topography to see at a glance just the condition of the brood. There may be cells that look empty until a ray of light reveals at the bottom a glistening egg; and there may be cells with a little milky substance at the bottom in which the young larva is floating; or in some cells the bee grubs may be distinctly seen if they are four or five days old. If the cells are capped, it may puzzle the novice to know what lies behind that closed waxen door. If the cells contain honey, the substance of which the cap is made is whiter than that which covers the brood. In case of worker-brood the cap is depressed slightly below the plane of the comb, which is not the case if the cells contain honey. The large size of the drone cells distinguishes them readily from the cells of the workers. Often honey is stored in drone cells, for the bees seem to like to make these larger cells, and for good reason, since they give greater storage capacity for the amount of wax used. However, the drone cells which contain brood are covered with dark, dirty, yellow caps which are quite convex, looking like kopjes on the comb plain. At the height of the honey season there should be plenty of brood, and later the cells in the brood-frames
