The colonies which had been there all winter, however, mostly having queens a year or two old, did get to swarming. For several days they were kept busy watching for swarms, clipping queens, and cutting out swarming-cells. The new swarms increased the apiary by fifteen colonies, but they would cheerfully have done without this addition.
For the last few days the honey flow had slackened a little. The first bloom of the clover was waning. More rain was needed. A great part of the honey in the supers was sealed over white and smooth, and they set up the extracting outfit.
It was a much more elaborate affair than the makeshift outfit at Old Dick’s cabin. There was a large extractor that reversed automatically, a proper uncapping-box, several large tin storage-tanks, and an uncapping-knife kept hot by a jet of steam passed through the hollow blade. All this apparatus was much needed, for there was a great deal of honey already, and the supers from the “out-yards” all had to be hauled home for extracting and then taken back again.
The extracting-house was a former back kitchen, dry and clean, bee-tight, with screened windows and door, looking out upon the apiary. Bob and Carl went out early in the morning to one of the “out-yards” and returned towards noon with a load of combs. Leaving them for Alice and Joe to extract, they started after dinner to the other yard. They reported that the bees were cross; very little honey was coming in, and they had to sort out the finished combs in the supers from the unsealed ones.
“We’ve only got a beginning of a crop yet,” said Bob. “It all depends now on whether we get rain. If not—it’s all over.”
Joe and Alice worked hard all that day, but had not finished when the others came back with a fresh load. The next morning all four of them embarked on the task, and finished up the lot, which Carl took back to the out-yards alone, leaving Bob to take off honey from the home ranch.
It rained hard that afternoon, forcing him to stop outdoor work but filling their spirits with renewed hope. They worked in the sticky room, full of the smell of the fresh honey, over the whirling extractor, and watched the rain pouring down the window, till the tanks were all full and they had to draw the contents off into tins.
The crates of sixty-pound tins had been stored in readiness for some time, and they worked till late that night, drawing off the honey and crating the honey up again for shipment.
“Ninety tins full,” said Bob, counting them when they had finished. “We ought to get eighteen cents; that’ll make close to a thousand dollars. And this rain’ll start the honey flow again.”
They did not get eighteen cents a pound, though. Next morning Bob telegraphed two of the principal honey-dealers of Toronto, and sixteen cents was the best offer he could get. And at this price he shipped it.