94 THE COTTAGE AND FARM BEK KEEPER. 



empty one, and to set this over the side box, which is supposed to be 

 partially filled with honey and comb. If thus treated every alternate 

 year, the stock box of every colony should have only half of its comb 

 out away at a time. It will thus be preserved in perpetuity, and may 

 either have its former occupants returned, or receive a new queen and 

 fresh population. In either case, whatever brood may be found in the 

 box to be renewed, may, and ought, (if in any quantity,) to be saved. 

 How this may be done has already been sufficiently pointed out in 

 Chapters V. and VII. 



To renovate a hive by substituting a young for an old and worn-out 

 queen — whether she be three or four years old — the plan to be pur- 

 sued is still more simple, and no less efficacious, than that just advised 

 for comb renewal. 



I may premise that one very serious objection to the depriving or 

 non-swarming system, where it is followed in its integrity, (and to the 

 existence of objections to it I have alluded before,) is to be found in 

 this : That, owing to the absence of a demand for royal brood tol ead 

 off colonies, the queen sometimes lays no royal egg* at all in the 

 hive ; or if she does lay in royal cells, the bees destroy the grubs be- 

 fore they come to maturity. Now, should this happen for three or 

 four years consecutively, it stands to reason that the colony must 

 perish — I mean where the decay of the queen is gradual, when even 

 the laying of worker eggs is discontinued some time previous to her 

 death, out of which a sovereign might be raised artificially to supply 

 her place. To this, among other causes, must be attributed the very 

 frequent casualties which occur in box colonies that are not suffered 

 to swarm. I should almost be disposed to lay it down as an excep- 

 tion to the rule, where they thrive for more than four consecutive 

 years together. Every scientific manager of an apiary ought, there- 

 fore, by careful observation, to make himself acquainted, as accurately 

 as possible, with the age and pedigree of every queen bee under his 

 charge, so as to be able, by a judicious removal of the old queens, and 

 the substitution of young and vigorous ones in their place, to preserve 

 his colonies perpetually in thorough working order. 



Now one way to do this is as follows : — Let him procure from his 



* I use the term " royal egg" in a popular sense ; not that I believe the egg from which 

 a queen is reared to be at all different from those eggs out of which the common bees 

 proceed. 



