156 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



re-issue in a day or two. She may be lost, but at this particu- 

 lar time her loss is not so very great. There is no danger of 

 (he swarm being lost ; it will return to the liive in a few minutes, 

 although I have known them to cluster for half an hour or more 

 before returning. It may happen, sometimes, that a swarm 

 may go into a hive whose colony has swarmed a little while 

 before, and where it is always peacefully received. I do not 

 like this doubling up, but I do not know that I lose any thing 

 by it, for the bees can store up just as much in one hive as 

 another. 



When the watcher finds the queen, she is caged. Either the 

 cage is held down for her to run into, or she is caught and then 

 caged. After the queen is in the cage, the block is pushed in 

 an inch or so, and the cage put where the bees can take care of 

 it. Usually it is thrust into the entrance, close up against the 

 bottom-bars, so that if a cool night should come there will be 

 no danger that the bees will desert it. 



The watcher keeps a little memorandum book, and puts 

 down in it the number of the colony that swarmed; for it might 

 make bad work if it should be forgotten and neglected until the 

 emergence of a young queen to lead out an absconding swarm. 



doolittle's plax. 



Some years ago Mr. G. M. Doolittle gave a plan for man- 

 agement of swarming colonies when no increase was desired. 

 I do not think that he uses it now. I do not know that T shall 

 ever use it again, and yet it was valuable to me, and for some 

 circumstances nothing may be better. The plan, in brief, was 

 this: The queen being caged and left in the hive, all queen-cells 

 are cut out in five days from the time the swarm issued, and 

 Kve days latei- all queen-cells are again cut out and the queen sei 

 at liberty. 



1 used this one season with great satisfaction, and I do not 

 remember that any colony thus treated swarmed again. 



VARYING DOOLITTLE-'S PLAN. 



The next season I varied the plan. Instead of leaving the 

 (|ueeii with the colony to remain idle for ten days, I took her 



