130 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



used for new swarms. Bees, when they swarm, being 

 unnaturally excited and heated, often refuse to enter such 

 hives, and at best, are slow in taking possession of them. 

 The temperature of the parent-stock, at the moment of 

 swarming, rises very suddenly, and many bees are often 

 so drenched with perspiration, that they are unable to 

 take whig and join the emigrating colony. . To attempt 

 to make swarming bees enter a heated hive in a blazing 

 sun, is, therefore, as irrational as it would be to force a 

 panting crowd of human beings into the suffocating at- 

 mosphere of a close garret. If the process of hiving can- 

 not be conducted in the shade, the hive should be covered 

 with a sheet, or with leafy boughs. 



In the movable-comb hive, the Apiarian can use all his 

 good worker-comb, by. fastening it in the frames. Such, 

 however, is the shape of the artificial guide-combs in 

 these frames, that the bees, even in an empty hive, will 

 almost always build their combs with great regularity, 

 if they are not furnished with too much empty room. I 

 have, in a, few instances, known them to build their combs" 

 directly across, from frame to frame, so that they could 

 not be removed without cutting them to pieces. This 

 may easily be prevented, by attaching a piece <5f guide- 

 comb to a single frame (see p. 72). While the hive should 

 be set so as to incline from rear to front, to shed the 

 rain, there ought not to be the least pitch from side to 

 side, or it will prevent the frames from hanging plumb, 

 and -compel the bees to build crooked combs. Drone- 

 combs should never be put in the frames, or the bees will 

 follow the pattern, and build comb suitable only for breed- 

 ing a horde of useless consumers. Such comb, if white, 

 may be used to great advantage in the surplus honey- 

 boxes ; if old, it should be melted for wax. 



Every piece of good worker-comb, if large enough to 



