ARTIFICIAL SW ARMING. 153 



practice, requires more skill, care, labor, and time, than 

 are necessary to manage the ordinary swarming-hives. 



The failure, on the part of experienced, as well as inex- 

 perienced Apiarians, of so many attempts to increase col- 

 onies by artificial means, has led many to advocate the 

 general use of non-swarming hives. In such hives, very 

 large harvests of honey are often obtained from strong 

 stocks of bees ; but it is evident that if the formation of 

 new colonies were generally discouraged, the insect would 

 soon be exterminated. 



Although the movable-comb hive may be made more 

 effectually to prevent swarming than any with which I am 

 acquainted, still there are some objections to the non- 

 swarming plan which cannot be removed. To say nothing 

 of its preventing the increase of stocks, bees usually work 

 with diminished vigor, after they have been kept in a non- 

 swarming hive for several seasons. This will be obvious 

 to any one who will compare the super-abounding energy 

 of a new swarm, with the more sluggish working of even 

 a much stronger non-swarming stock. 



An old queen, whose fertility has become impaired, can 

 be easily caught and removed, in the movable-comb hive ; 

 but when hives are used in which this cannot be done, the 

 Apiary will contain queens that have passed their prime, 

 and some which may die when there are no eggs from 

 which others can be reared. 



On no subject has the author of this work experimented 

 more fully than on that of Artificial Swarming ; and those 

 bee-keepers to whom this chapter may, at first, seem need- 

 lessly diffuse, will find that it contains many important 

 principles, which, in any other connection, would probably 

 have required even more fullness of detail. 



Before detailing the various methods of Artificial 

 Swarming which may be practiced in the movable-comb 



