182 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



"best. It not only secures a reasonable increase of colonies, 

 but maintains them all in high vigor ; and in ordinary 

 seasons will yield, in good locations, more surplus honey, 

 than if all increase of colonies was discouraged. If every 

 bee-keeper would adopt this plan, our country might 

 soon be like the ancient Palestine, " a land flowing with 

 milk and honey." 



In all the modes of artificial increase thus far given, the 

 parent or mother-stock as I shall call it in this connection 

 after parting with the forced swarm, was either supplied 

 with a sealed royal cell, or left to raise a new queen from 

 worker-brood. JBy the use of movable-comb hives, it may 

 be at once supplied with a fertile young queen. Before 

 showing how this is done, its extraordinary advantages 

 will be described. 



It sometimes happens that the mother-stock, when de- 

 prived of its queen, perishes, either because it takes no 

 steps to supply her loss, or because it fails in the attempt. 

 If it raises several queens, it may become reduced by 

 after-swarming ; and, at all events, its young queen must 

 run the usual risks in meeting the drones. When all goes 

 right, it will usually be from two to three weeks before 

 any eggs are laid in the mother-stock; and when the 

 brood left by the old queen has all matured, the number 

 of the bees will so rapidly decrease, before any of the 

 brood of the young queen hatches, that she will not have 

 a fair chance, seasonably to replenish the hive. 



Again ; while the system that gives no hatched queen 

 to the mother-stock, exposes it to be robbed if forage is 

 scarce, the presence of a fertile mother emboldens it to a 

 much more determined resistance. 



If the mother-stock has not been supplied with a fertile 

 queen, it cannot, for a long time, part with another colony, 

 without being seriously weakened. Second swarming 



