THE COTTAGE AND TARM B3E KEEPER. 69 



into a glass or super, in the way of guide or decoy comb, especially if 

 there chance to be a little honey in it ; some ought certainly to be re- 

 served and laid by for this purpose every year. 



Let me now fulfill the promise which I made to reveal to the bee 

 master a method of increasing his stock hives without the necessity of 

 his moving from the bee house, so as to make him entirely independent 

 of the process of swarming, or driving bees, as a means of stocking 

 his apiary. 



To form a stock of bees according to this method, it is simply requi- 

 site to catch the queen bee of a strong colony, some time between the 

 end of the third week in May, and the middle of the month of July ; 

 that is, before the slaughter of the drones has commenced in that partic- 

 ular hive, and while there is still much brood in it. To secure the per- 

 son of majesty, with this end in view, may seem difficult in the case 

 of common box colony. In reality, it is far easier than to secure the 

 queen of a leaf or observatory hive, for she may be caught without 

 the escape of a single bee — with the utmost coolness on the part of the 

 operator — and even without laying a finger on the royal person. To 

 succeed in this enterprise, however, the bees must have worked some 

 comb in one or more bee glasses, (the more the better,) the colony 

 must be strong in population, eggs must be found in the stock hive, 

 and the queen must be still vigorous. These necessary points occur- 

 ring together, nothing is wanting to success but the watchfulness of 

 the operator. As June advances, and the bees' ardor in the collection 

 of honey is. at its height, scarcely a day will pass in which the queen 

 of a vigorous stock will not appear several times in one or all of the 

 glasses over the stock hive. She is anxious to lay, but it is with diffi- 

 culty, (owing to the demand for store room,) that she can find suita- 

 ble cells, wherein to deposit her eggs. Indeed, it is only when by 

 mere good luck, she happens to anticipate her subjects in finding a cell 

 just vacated by a young-eScaped bee, that she can lay with comfort ; 

 in this strait, she perambulates every part of the hive in search of 

 breeding space, and in the course of her journeyings, among other 

 places, she visits the bee glasses. Now, if at any one of these mo- 

 ments, (and they occur pretty frequently,) the bee master happens to 

 be on the watch, the golden moment is arrived. Without loss of time, 

 let him thrust a couple of zinc plates between the glass in which the 



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