THE COTTAGE AND FARM BEE KEEPER. 81 



suggested as to the costliness of wax, it will be his best policy 

 either to preserve this comb, to another year, (when it will be highly 

 prized by the bees, to whom it may be given, whether old stock or 

 prime swarm,) or to make use of it at once by turning into it an expa- 

 triated doubled colony of bees, procured from elsewhere expressly for 

 the purpose, in other words, to make an artificial stock out of it. To 

 this intent, the first thing to be done is to make a bargain with some 

 one or more cottage bee keepers in the neighborhood, who are least 

 foolishly superstitious about their bees, while they adhere religiously 

 to the " good old plan" of the brimstone pit, as the best finale to the 

 labors of the year. In most places the bribe of a sixpence or a shil- 

 ling will induce them very readily to give up their bees to the experi- 

 mental apiarian. He should choose, if choice is afforded him, the 

 strongest, fullest, and most populous stocks, which will generally be 

 the swarms of the previous year, that have swarmed once in the course 

 of the present season, for these stocks, having a young queen, will be 

 in full vigor and promise. Next, those which are as distant as possi- 

 ble from his own apiary, (say two or three miles off,) should be bar- 

 gamed for in preference to those that are nearer at hand, as the bees 

 will be so much less likely to 1 wander off to their old haunts and perish. 

 It is also desirable that the hives intended for plunder should stand side 

 by side ; nor must there be less than two such in the same garden: 



These preliminary steps having been taken — and 1 they should be 

 done in good time — a fine day must be chosen, (as early in August as 

 possible,) for the taking away of the side box or boxes from one or 

 both of his colonies, according to circumstances. The removal of a 

 box intervening between the stock hive and the open air, is an easy 

 matter in apiaries managed according to my plan, though it may appear 

 an affair of some' difficulty. I begin by thrusting in the' zinc slides 

 between the homes, by which means I speedily ascertain in which of the 

 boxes the queen happens to be. Should it be apparent that she has 

 taken up her quarters ill the box nearest to the entrance, after wait- 

 ing some twenty minutes, I proceed to withdraw the zinc ventilating 

 slide vmder the hive board of the side box, having previously' opened 

 one of the windows in the room or bee house — all other fights being 

 darkened so as to afford only one place of uninterrupted, egress to the 

 bees. If this be performed in the warmest part of a fine day, but few 

 bees in general will be found in it, and most of these will have eagerty 



