[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Manipulation--removing comb from hive. (Original.)] With Italian or black bees a puff or two of smoke should be given at the hive entrance and the cover and honey board, or quilt, removed slowly and carefully, smoke being driven in as soon as the least opening is made and the volume increased enough to keep down all bees as fast as the covering is removed. The smoker may then be placed on the windward side of the hive to allow the fumes to pass over the top and toward the operator. The frames may then be gently pried loose and lifted out carefully, without crushing a bee if it can be avoided. Crushing bees fills the air with the odor of poison, which irritates the bees. So also when one bee is provoked to sting others follow because of the odor of poison. Too much smoke will often render certain manipulations difficult; for example, when queens are to be sought out, or nuclei or artificial swarms made, volumes of smoke blown in between the combs will drive the bees from them so that they will cluster in clumps on the bottoms of the frames or in the corners of the hives. A little observation and judgment will enable one to know when the bees need smoke and how much of it to prevent any outbreak on their part, which it is always best to forestall rather than be obliged to quell after it is fully under way. The frame hive as now made--with metal rabbets and arrangements for surplus honey, and quilts instead of honey boards--reduces propolization to a minimum and renders the danger of irritating the bees by jarring when manipulating much less. As a prerequisite to rapid and safe manipulation _perfectly straight combs are necessary_. [Illustration: Fig. 14.--Manipulation--tilting to bring reverse side of comb in view. (Original.)] [Illustration: Fig. 15.--Manipulation--reverse side of comb brought to view. (Original.)] [Illustration: Fig. 16.--Manipulation--examining verse side of comb. (Original.)]