ARTIFICIAL SWARMINfl. 201 



once, accept the proffered treat, and will begin lapping it 

 up, as peaceably as so many chickens helping themselves 

 to corn. While they are thus engaged, the frames must be 

 very gently pried by a slick, from their attachments to the 

 rabbets on which they rest ; this may be done without any 

 jar and without wounding or enraging a single bee. They 

 may all be loosened preparatory to removing them, in less 

 than a minute.* By this time, the sprinkled bees will have 

 filled themselves, or if all have not done so, the grateful 

 intelligence that sweets have been furnished them, will 

 diffuse an unusual good nature through all the honied realm. 

 The Apiarian should now remove one of the outside frames, 

 taking hold of its two ends which rest upon the rabbets, and 

 carefully lifting it out without inclining it from its perpen- 

 dicular position, so as not to injure a single bee. The re- 

 moval of the next comb, and of all the succeeding ones, 

 will be more easily effected, as there will be more room to 

 operate to advantage. If bees were disposed to fly away 

 at once from their combs, as soon as they were taken out, 

 it would be very difficult to manage them, but so far are 

 Ihey from doing this, that they adhere to them with most 

 wonderful tenacity. I have sometimes removed all the 

 combs, and arranged ihem in a continued line, and the bees 

 have not only refused to leave them, but have stoutly de- 

 fended them against the thieving propensities of other bees. 

 By shaking off the bees from the combs upon a sheet, and 

 securing the queen, I can, on any pleasant day, exhibit 

 Dearly all the appearances of natural swarming. The bees, 

 as soon as they miss their queen, will rise into the air, and 



* I have often spent more than ten minutes in opening and shut- 

 ting a single frame in the Huber hive, and even then, have sometimes 

 crushed some of the be«s, 



