172 A MANUAL OF BEE-KEEPING. 



DRIVING 



Is the art of compelling Bees to leave one hive for 

 another, either to facilitate the making of artificial 

 swarms, to enable us to deprive the Bees of their stores, 

 to strengthen the population of stocks by adding two 

 or more together, to capture the Queen for the purpose 

 of introducing a Ligiirian, or making other exchange. 

 Driving is principally done upon stocks in skeps ; with 

 frame hives it is not usually required. The modus 

 operandi is very simple, and, properly managed, should 

 seldom fail. Some writers have gone so far as to assert 

 it is simply absurd to imagine that a stock of Bees will 

 leave their well-furnished hive for an empty one at the 

 bidding of the Bee-master. I can only say they will, and 

 the stronger and more active the stock, the sooner they 

 will go. On a cold day, with very weak or Queenless 

 colonies, I have sometimes found the Bees unpersuadable, 

 or only going after a long exercise of patience ; but at 

 other times from ten minutes to half an hour is generally 

 sufficient. 



At the Bee Show of the British Bee-keepers' Association, 

 1 878, prizes were offered to the competitors who should 

 in the quickest, neatest, and most effectual manner, drive 

 out the Bees from a full straw hive, and capture and ex- 

 hibit the Queen. The first prizeman accomplished his 

 task in Sf minutes, capturing the Queen, in her exit ; 

 another competitor did his work in 5 J minutes, but missed 

 the Queen as she travelled. It has often struck me as sur- 

 prising how any one can fail to drive the Bees under 

 favourable circumstances ; that beginners do often fail is 

 incontestable, but having once passed the pons asinorum^ 



