ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 211 



allowed to carry on their labors without any interruption. 

 The object of giving the control over every comb in the 

 hive, is not to enable him to be incessantly taking them in 

 and out, and subjecting the bees to all sorts of annoyances. 

 Unless he is conducting a course of experiments, such in- 

 terference will be almost as silly as the conduct of children 

 who pull up the seeds which they have planted, to see 

 whether they have sprouted, or how much they have grown. 

 If after these cautions, any still choose to disregard them, 

 the blame of iheir losses will fall, not upon the hive, but 

 upon their own mismanagement. 



Let me not, for a moment, be understood as wishing to 

 discourage investigation, or to intimate that perfection has been 

 so nearly attained that no more important discoveries remain 

 to be made. On the contrary,! should be glad to learn that 

 many who have the time and means, are disposed to use the 

 facilities furnished by hives which give the control of each 

 comb, to experiment on a large scale ; and I hope that every 

 intelligent bee-keeper who follows my plans, will experi- 

 ment at least on a small scale. In this way, we may soon 

 expect to see, more satisfactorily elucidated, some points 

 in the Natural History of the bee, which are still involved 

 in doubt. 



Having described the way in which forced swarms are 

 made, both in common hives and in ray own, when the 

 Apiarian wishes in one season merely to double his colonies, 

 I shall now show in what way he can secure the largest 

 yield of honey, by forming only one new colony from two 

 old ones. 



Early in the season, before the bees fly out, or better still, 

 after they ceased to fly in the previous Fall, the two- hives 

 from which the new colony is to be formed, should be 

 placed near each other, unless they are already, not more 



