ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 37 



end ot the season; for without strong colonies we can not expect much 

 surplus. As the day Is now past when natural swarming is desired by 

 any progressive bee-keeper, we will turn our attention to some practical 

 way of making artificial increase. 



The most common way of doing this is either forming nuclei and 

 afterward building them up into strong colonies, or dividing a strong 

 colony at once by putting the greater part of the bees with their queen 

 in an empty hive on the old stand and setting the old hive containing 

 the brood away some distance in a new place. Bach of these methods 

 has some serious faults. The nucleus method usually reguires so much 

 time that frequently the best part of the harvest is past before they are 

 in condition to take advantage ot it. They also require much work and 

 attention, and the other way of dividing the strong colony is all wrong 

 in every respect. 



I think I hear some of you say, "Yes, but that Is about the same as 

 natural swarming, only the old hive is set on a new stand." 



I will admit it is something the same, though not half so good; for 

 in natural swarming the old hive on its old stand retains part of Its 

 working force, and matures all its brood; whereas if divided, as Is fre- 

 quently done after its queen and most of its working force are left on 

 the old stand, and it finds Itself in a new place without its queen, the 

 greater part of the bees that have ever been out to fly will return to 

 the old stand and join the swarm, leaving the old hive with all its brood 

 in a deserted condition. Then the few remaining bees will destroy every 

 egg and nearly all the uncapped larvse. Here you lose enough brood, 

 many times, to make nearly a swarm. 



After studying on this subject for many years, and trying every 

 thing I could think of to prevent this loss of brood in making our in- 

 crease, and at the same time avoid the loss of valuable time In fussing 

 with nuclei, and at all times keeping every colony in good condition to 

 take advantage of any unexpected harvest that might come, I hit on 

 what I consider the most practical way of making increase of any thing 

 I have ever tried or heard of. It is this: 



When your colonies are nearly full enough to swarm naturally, and 

 you wish to divide them so as to make two from one, go to the colony 

 you wish to divide; lift it from its stand and put in its place a hive 

 containing frames of comb or foundation, the same as you would put 

 the swarm in providing it had just swarmed. Now remove the center 

 comb from your empty hive, and put In its place a frame of brood, 

 either from the hive you wish to divide or some other colony that can 

 spare one, and be sure you find the queen and put her on this frame of 

 brood in the new hive; also look it over very carefully to see that it 

 contains no eggs or larvae in any queen-cells. If it does, destroy them. 

 Now put a queen-excluding honey-board on top of this new hive that 

 contains the queen and frame of brood with their empty combs, then 

 set your full queenless colony on top of the excluder; put in the empty 



