28 THE CONTROLLABLE HIVE. 
bees swarming by cutting out the queen cells. It was 
a surprise to me that this plan should be recommended 
by bee keepers claiming to be well skilled in bee manage- 
ment. After proving this plan of no value, I was told 
if I would contract the eutrances to my hives so the 
queen could not pass, I could thereby successfully pre- 
vent swarming, as the swarms would not leave without 
the queen. This looked to me like a very nice opera- 
tion, to say the least, in fact, more nice than wise. How- 
ever, I determined to test the plan. I accordingly con- 
tracted the entrance to my hives, and lo! the drones 
being larger than the queen, they could not pass! So 
they clustered about the entrance, and in their efforts to 
get out, completely blocked up the passage, so the 
workers could not pass. Yet this plan of contracting 
the entrance was claimed to be protected by letters 
patent of the U. 8S. I found this plan for preventing 
swarming of vo value whatever. Very many other plans 
were tendered me and tested with like results. I was 
all this time pushing my experiments, and learning some- 
thing from experience every day. I was determined to 
arrange and construct a hive which would render bee 
keeping successful and profitable, and I can say at the 
present time, my labors have been rewarded with suc- 
cess. 
T ought to go on and write out a description of all the 
old methods of bee keeping, and all the patent bee hive 
humbugs, with the thousand and one non-patent hives 
and fixtures, gotten up expressly to swindle bee keepers 
