should be filled with honey. The cells containing bee-bread are not capped, as this staff of bee life is packed so hard that it does not need to be covered. All honey remains uncapped until it is properly evaporated and ripened. (Plate VIII.)
After one frame has been thus examined, it should be leaned up against the side of the hive so as to give space to lift out the next frame without crushing the bees.
HOW TO FIND THE QUEEN CELL
Fortunately for us, this is quite prominent, being a veritable oriel in shape. However, there may be other excrescences of the comb which somewhat resemble a queen cell; sometimes the queen cell may be more or less embedded and so escape observation. The bee-keeper who is cocksure that he can find all the queen cells in his hives has to be most experienced, and even then cocksureness may come to grief. But this unglazed oriel window in which the queen develops is usually quite noticeable, and is ordinarily decorated with a small, hexagonal pattern in relief. We have often wondered if this was done for the sake of decoration, or because the bees are so in the habit of fashioning wax into hexagonal patterns that they do it involuntarily. For the person who rashly asserts that honeycomb is the result of fortuitous force and pressure, this queen cell with its hexagonal frescoes is a poser. (Plate V.)
To cut out the queen cell a sharp, pointed knife
