ARTIFICIAL SWABMING. 183 



as is well known often very much injures the parent- 

 stock, although its queens are rapidly maturing ; but the 

 forced mother-stock may have to start theirs almost from 

 the egg. By giving it a fertile queen, and retaining 

 enough adhering bees to develop the brood, a moderate 

 swarm may be safely taken away in ten or twelve days, 

 and the mother-stock left in a far better condition than if 

 it had parted with two natural swarms. In favorable 

 seasons and localities, this process may be repeated four 

 or five times, at intervals of ten days, and if no combs are 

 removed, the mother-stock will still be well supplied with 

 brood and mature bees. Indeed, the judicious removal 

 of bees, at proper* intervals, often leaves it, at the close 

 of the Summer, better supplied than non-swarming stocks 

 with maturing brood ; the latter having in the expressive 

 language of an old writer " waxed over fat."f I have 

 had stocks which, after parting with four swarms in the 

 way above described, have stored their hives with buck- 

 wheat honey, besides yielding a surplus in boxes. 



This method of artificial increase, which resembles 



* If a strong stock of bees, in a hivo of moderate size, Is examined, at the height 

 of the honey-harvest, nearly all the cells will often be found fall of brood, honey, 

 or bee-bread. The great laying of the queen is over not as some imagine, be- 

 cause her fertility has decreased, but simply for want of room for more brood. A 

 queen in such a colony, or in a hive having few bees, often appears almost as 

 slender as one still unfertile ; but if she has plenty of bees and empty comb given 

 to her, her proportions will soon become very much enlarged. (P. 47.) 



t Columella had noticed that, in very productive seasons, strong stocks, If left 

 to themselves, fill up their brood-combs with honey, instead of rearing young bees. 

 He advises the unskillful, instead of being pleased with this apparent gain, to shut 

 up their hives every third day, and thus compel the bees to attend to breeding! 

 This gives the queen a chance to deposit eggs in the cells from which the young 

 bees hatch, before they are filled with honey ; and no better plan can be devised 

 for the common hives. 



In the movable-comb hives, a few of the combs nearest the ends may be taken 

 out, and as many empty frames put between every two of the central 'combs ; 

 these will at once be supplied with combs, in which the queen will deposit eggs. 

 It would seem that, while the instincts of the bees teach them to rear all the eggs 

 deposited in cells, their avaricious propensities often as in human beings get the 



