He saw his cousin come up to one of the bee houses from the rear. First the top cover was carefully lifted off, and this was set on the ground, edge up. Next Adrian lifted up a piece of oilcloth that kept all possible dampness from the honey. As soon as this was moved aside Roger saw a black moving mass of bees crawling upward. Adrian quickly took the smoker and puffed a gentle white cloud of vapor on the insects. In an instant they melted away, scurrying downward. The smoke irritated them and made them drowsy, and they wanted to get away from its smarting vapor. This made it safe for any one to work about the hive, under the protection of fumes from the burning wood.
This left free the upper section of the hive, which was filled with caps full of the clear white, or darker buckwheat honey, the bees being below. Adrian then lifted off the whole top part of the little house, and Roger could see that it contained a number of the full caps, in this case there being only the white clover honey. Setting his load down on top of the hive next to him, Adrian replaced the cover on the first hive. Then he puffed several more clouds of smoke on the top section he had just removed, to drive away the few remaining bees that were loath to leave their property.
Adrian carried the section, which contained twenty-four small caps, to the bee house, and returned to repeat the operation on other hives. Roger looked on with much interest as Adrian worked rapidly.
"Got stung yet?" he called to his busy cousin.
"One nipped me on the finger a bit, but I don't mind that. I'm used to it. Are they bothering you?"
"Well," answered Roger, moving his head from side to side, "some of 'em seem anxious to make my acquaintance, but the veil keeps 'em away. All the same they make me nervous."
"We'll soon go inside," called back Adrian. "I'm only going to take off a few more. Then we'll box it and be through."
He removed half a dozen more hive-tops, with the honey-filled sections, each one containing twenty-four pounds of the sweet stuff, a pound to a cap. Then, when he had given the few bees that got in the storehouse a chance to escape, Adrian prepared to pack the honey for market. To do this it was first necessary to scrape from each wooden cap, or the small, one-pound honey boxes, the beeswax that, here and there, marred the clean white wood. Roger wanted to help at this, and, as he could do it safely, Adrian got two dull knives, and he and his cousin began.
"Be sure to keep the caps standing on the same end they are on now," cautioned Adrian.
"Why? What difference does it make?"