230 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



and rear another. But what kind of comb will they fill 

 their hives with, before the young queen begins to breed ? Of 

 that, perhaps, you had never thought. Let me now lay down 

 the only safe rule for all who engage in the multiplication of 

 artificial swarms. Never, under any circumstances, take 

 so much comb and brood from your stock hives, as seriously 

 to reduce their numbers. This should be ,to the Apiarian, 

 as " the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth 

 not." 



Suppose that I divide a populous stock, about swarming 

 season, into four or five colonies ; the strong probability is, 

 that not one of them, if left to themselves, will be strong 

 (enough to survive the Winter. If fed in the ordinary way, 

 and yet not supplied with combs and bees, their ruin will 

 often be only accelerated. If, on the contrary, I had taken, 

 from time to time, combs sufficient to form three or four 

 nuclei, and had strengthened the new colonies, in such a 

 way as not to draw too severely upon the rescources of the 

 parent stock, I might expect to see them all, in due time, 

 strong and flourishing. 



In the Spring of the year, if I desire to determine the 

 strength of a colony principally to raising young bees, I can 

 easily effect it by the following plan. A box is made, of 

 the same inside dimensions with the lower hive, into which 

 the combs and bees of a full hive can all be transferred, 'as 

 soon as the bees are gathering honey enough to build new 

 combs. This box is now set over the old hive, which con- 

 tains its complement of frames with guide combs, or better 

 still, with empty combs. As soon as the bees begin to build, 

 they take possession of the lower hive, through which they 

 go in and out, and the queen descends with iTiem, in order 

 to lay her eggs in the lower combs. As soon as the old 

 apartment becomes pretty well filled, a large number of 



