102 INCREASE 



moving about in front of the hive. It is then an easy matter 

 to place her safely in a cage, and to remove the old hive from 

 which the swarm issued and put a new one ready for the swarm in 

 its place. If the bees cluster in a convenient place they may be 

 shaken into a basket and dumped in front of the new hive at 

 once, and the queen released and allowed to run in with them. 

 Usually, the bees will shortly miss the queen and return to the 

 old location of their own accord, and when they begin to enter 

 the hive the queen may be released. This is a very easy manner 

 of hiving swarms when the owner is in the yard when they issue. 

 If no one is present when the swarm comes out, even though they 

 be found while still clustered, it will be difficult to find the 

 place from which they came, in a large apiary, and the swarm is 

 likely to return before the queen is found. Colonies that are not 

 permitted to swarm naturally are likely to come out again with 

 a young queen, with which they will make off to distant scenes. 



Clipping is a decided advantage where large trees are near 

 the apiary, as it is a difficult and unpleasant task to capture a 

 swarm that has clustered in the top of some tall tree, perhaps 

 forty feet from the ground. 



There is another advantage in having clipped queens ; one 

 can tell the age of every queen in the yard if records are kept. 

 If the queen is a clipped one and is superseded, the attendant 

 will notice the fact the first time he looks in the hive, as the young 

 queen will of course not be clipped. If none of the queens are 

 clipped, it will frequently happen that a queen will be super- 

 seded without the knowledge of the bee-keeper. 



Cutting Out Cells. — Some practice cutting out queen cells 

 as a sole means of swarm prevention. At best this is an unsatis- 

 factory plan. To be successful, every frame in every hive must 

 be examined every eight days during the season. This entails 

 so much work that it is almost entirely out of the question in a 

 large apiary. An occasional cell will be overlooked and the bees 

 will swarm in spite of the best attention. 



If the bees have cast a natural swarm, one can then examine 



