CHilPTER II. 



THE CONTROLLABLE HIVE AND NEW 

 SYSTEM OF BEE MANAGEMENT. 



IT is now nearly ten years since I perfected the 

 Controllable Bee Hive, and New System of 

 |T Bee Management. I commenced bee keeping 

 with the common box hive, with no knowledge 

 whatever of the habits of bees. I was not long m 

 learning that I could not make bee keeping a suc- 

 cess with the box hive, and I also found that the 

 thousand and one patent hives were no better than, 

 and the great majority of such hives inferior to, 

 the simple box hive. I found there was no practi- 

 cal method of controllingJ:he swarming propensi- 

 ties of bees. All such hives would swarm or not, 

 as seemed to suit the caprice of the bees, which I 

 found very perplexing. Stocks under the old plan 

 of management, sometimes show every indication of 

 swarming, such as clustering out, etc., yet they 

 adhere pertinaciously to the old stock through the 

 entire summer, a peck or more of them clustering 

 idly on the outside of the hive, through the season ; 

 and if one put on boxes, it is all the same, they will 

 do nothing. And such swarms often starve early 



