PREVENTING AFTER-SWARMS ARTIFICIAL INCREASE. 99 



young queen is at hand and it is desirable to replace the old queen, all 

 cells but one may be destroyed, but this must on no account be jarred 

 or dented. The danger of overlooking a cell where the hive is crowded 

 with bees makes this method somewhat uncertain ; moreover, when the 

 bees have once got the " swarming fever" they may swarm again with- 

 out preparation in the way of queen cells. It is also very troublesome 

 to remove supers to get at the brood combs. These difficulties will 

 induce many who may wish to limit the number of tbeir colonies to 

 prefer hiving the swarms on starters of foundation on the old stands 

 and giving them the supers, while the parent colonies are placed near 

 them with entrances turned away for a few days. The flight bees return, 

 of course, to the old stand. The parent colony should be turned a little 

 each day so as to bring it in five or six days side by side with the hive 

 containing the swarm, Avhich is on the old stand, and make its front 

 face in the same way. By lifting it a day or so later, while the young 

 bees are flying, over to the opposite side of the old stand and turning 

 its entrance away from that of the hive on this stand, the bees that are 

 flying, as well as those that have marked their last location, will join the 

 swarm; and if the same operation be repeated at the end of another 

 week most of the remaining bees will find their way within a day or 

 two into the hive on the old stand. About this time that is, some fif- 

 teen or sixteen days after the issuance of the first swarm the young 

 queen will commence laying and may be put in place of the old one 

 which issued with the swarm. If honey is still coming in, the young 

 queen, with accompanying bees, may usually be safely introduced at this 

 time by shaking them in front of the hive from which the queen has 

 been removed, both lots of bees having been smoked beforehand so as 

 to get them to fill themselves with honey; or the two combs between 

 which the queen is found may be lifted, with adhering bees, and placed 

 in the center of the colony to which the queen is to be given. Before 

 doing this it is best to smoke the latter pretty thoroughly, and if two 

 of the brood combs from this hive have been removed a few hours before 

 and placed, after their bees have been shaken off, in the colony to be 

 united, and all other combs taken away from the latter, the bees, with 

 their queen, will be clustered on these brood combs, and they may be 

 lifted up without disturbance and placed in the middle of the other hive, 

 whose supers and cover are to be put in place at once and the bees left 

 to quiet down and resume storing. Under these circumstances the loss 

 of a queen will be very rare; nevertheless, in the case of an excep- 

 tionally valuable one, cages and other methods are advisable. (See 

 Chapter IX.) 



ARTIFICIAL INCREASE. 



The time lost in watching for swarms and hiving them, the occasional 

 losses of swarms, and the vexations attendant upon their issuance, such 

 as their clustering in tall trees, uniting and killing queens, and the 

 delay in their swarming when the time has come for it, have led bee 



