This advantage attends glass boxes: while being filled, the progress can be watched till finished, when they should be taken off to preserve the purity of the combs. Every day the bees are allowed to run over them, renders them darker. Consequently, when our bees are a long time filling a box, it is not as purely white as when filled expeditiously.
Two weeks is the shortest time I ever had any filled and finished. This, of course, depends on the yield of honey, and size of the swarm; three or four weeks are usually taken for the purpose. I have before said that the first yield of honey nearly fails in this section, usually about the 20th of July; there are some variations, later or earlier, according to the season. In other places it may be much later.
It can be ascertained by occasionally raising the cover to your glass boxes. When no more is being added, all boxes that are worth the trouble should be taken off; if left longer the comb gets darker, and such cells of honey as are not sealed over, (and sometimes the majority are such,) the bees generally remove down into the hive.
When boxes are to be taken off, if a slide of tin, zinc, &c., is used to close the holes, some of the bees are apt to be crushed, others will find themselves minus a head, leg, or abdomen, and all of them be irritable for several days. A little tobacco smoke is preferable, as it keeps all quiet. Just raise the box to be taken off sufficient to puff under it some smoke, and the bees will leave the vicinity of the holes in an instant; the box can then be removed, and another put on if necessary, without exciting their anger in the least.
MANNER OF DISPOSING OF THE BEES IN THE BOXES.
Arouse the bees by striking the box lightly four or five times. If all the cells are finished, and honey is still obtained, turn the box bottom up, near the hive from which it was taken, so that the bees can enter it without flying; by this means you can save several young bees, that have never left the hive and marked the location, and a few others too weak to fly, but will follow the others into the hive; (such are lost when we are obliged to carry them at a distance.) Boxes can be taken off either in the morning or evening; if in the morning, it may stand several hours when the sun is not too hot, but on no account let it stand in the sun in the middle of the day, as the combs will melt. The bees will all leave, sometimes in an hour; at others they will not be out in three. They may be taken off at evening and stand till morning, in fair weather; if not too cool, they are generally all out; but here is some risk of the moth finding it and depositing her eggs; perhaps one in fifty may be thus found.