224 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



every morning for a week we succeeded in getting rid of them, 

 and the hive has ever since been prosperous, and we believe they 

 could be exterminated in this way. But by using the hive 

 which we shall describe hereafter, the bee-keeper need have no 

 fears of the moth. 



As we remarked previously, the neglect to swarm offers no 

 objection to bee-keeping, for we can now multiply our swarms 

 indefinitely, whether the bees are inclined to swarm or not, and 

 although it is a pleasant sight to the bee-keeper to stand by a 

 hive and see the bees crowding out to swarm, and filling the air 

 with their merry gambols, yet we are satisfied that to increase 

 our swarms permanently we must resort to artificial swarming ; 

 for if we depend on our natural swarms, unless we watch the 

 hives during the swarming season, we shall lose a large portion 

 of our swarms ; for the time occupied by the swarm in leaving 

 the hive and clustering, rarely occupies more than ten minutes ; 

 sometimes not half as long. Sometimes they leave the hive 

 and fly some distance, and after they have gone or have clustered, 

 there is nothing like an even chance of our knowing tiiey have 

 swarmed, even if we examine the hives ; and for this reason, 

 among others, bee-keepers for more than fifty years have experi- 

 mented on artificial swarming. 



Till within a short time the process has been so complicated 

 that it required more time and knowledge than the mass of 

 bee-keepers had at their command. But, thanks to the genius 

 and experiments of Rev. L. L. Langstroth (who formerly resided 

 in our county,) the process is now so short and simple that any 

 person keeping bees can accomplish it. Perhaps a relation of 

 our own experience in this matter will here be in place. In 

 1861 we had a swarm which was hived in 1855, (a second 

 swarm ;) during the six years it had filled the body of the hive, 

 but had furnished us with neither swarms nor honey. Having 

 studied Langstroth's method, we invited a friend early in June 

 to come and assist us in the " kill or cure " process. He gladly 

 complied with the invitation, as he had a hive in about the same 

 condition, but he did not believe we could succeed in making a 

 swarm. 



On a warm day, about eleven o'clock, when the bees were fly- 

 ing thick, we took the hive from the stand, carried it about twenty 

 feet back and turned it bottom up, having previously stopped 



