254 A Modern Bee-Farm 
depend upon the approach or return of the honey-flow, and 
it may even be necessary to remove some of the least filled 
with brood, where comb-honey is to be worked for, crowding 
the bees on to eight or nine of the combs most densely 
packed with brood. 
Where increase is needed the better way is that of 
building up to at least two full chambers, and then divide 
into single chambers. I formerly practised 
Contraction 
both in Summer and Winter, but with the institution of my 
non-swarming system it is found unnecessary either for 
Summer or Winter. When increasing, however, it is the 
only way to make the most of the honey harvest, by thus 
curtailing the powers of the queen in less populous colonies. 
Treatment for either comb or extracted honey with divided 
stocks will be as before mentioned ; but where 
Natural Increase 
is permitted, the plan of proceeding will be somewhat 
different. Constant care and attention is needed where 
swarming is allowed, and if due precautions are not taken 
the prospects of a good harvest are ruined. In the first 
place we will consider my own method of 
Swarming without Increase. 
In the earlier days of the Brztzsh Bee Journal, 1 was on 
one occasion challenged to show how swarming could 
be carried out without allowing increase of stocks. I 
immediately accepted the challenge, and gave my plan 
of swarming without increase; and the same method was 
afterwards fully explained in my pamphlet of 1886. It 
consisted in either making an artificial swarm, and presently 
re-uniting ; or could be adapted to natural swarming. 
Where a swarm is not seen to issue, a glance around at 
the entrances of the hives only should show the bee-keeper 
