54 



The light laburnum lift her polished bro-vr, 

 Wave her green leafy ringlets o'er the glade, 

 And seems to beckon to her friendly shade. 

 STvift as the falcon's sweep, the monarch bends 

 Her flight abrupt ; the following host descends 

 Round the fine twig, like clustered grapes they close 

 In thickening wreaths, and coyert a short repose." 



Evans. 



Yet we are satisfied that to permanently increase our swarms 

 we must resort to 



ARTIFICIAL SWARMING, 



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

 hives during the swarming season, we shall lose a large por- 

 tion of our swarms ; for the time occupied by a swarm in leav- 

 ing 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 they have swarmed, even if we examine the hives ; 

 and for this reason, among others, bee-keepers for more than 

 fifty years have experimented 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 the 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 wh^ch 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 or honey. Hav- 

 ing studied Langstroth's niethod, we invited a friend early in 

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

 gladly complied with tho invitation, as he had a hive in about 

 the same condition, but he did not believe we could succeed in 

 making a swarm. 



