316 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
simply confuse the beginner if we made room to 
describe them all in these pages. In our section 
upon “The Swarming and Depriving Systems” we 
strongly recommended the practice of obtaining 
single swarms from the contributory populations of 
several distinct stocks; and the instructions above 
given for taking one or more frames from each of a 
number of hives will supply the practical method 
by which this principle is most readily carried out. 
It is open to the practitioner in that case to take 
the queen from one hive, and a single frame, or 
rather two frames, from each of as many more as 
he may choose—thus making up strong new colo- 
nies, but yet leaving the old ones comparatively 
undiminished. The new hive (or hives) should take 
the place of the very strongest of the old ones—it 
may be well for some of these to have been left with 
their full complement of combs, that they may contri- 
bute their adult population instead—for between the 
solicitude attendant upon a change of quarters and 
the fact that nearly all in the new colony are nurse 
bees, there will be not the smallest fear of the lives 
of those from another stock being sacrificed when 
they come unwittingly to bring the needed additions 
to its inhabitants. 
Artificial swarming should be carried out just in 
time to stop the bees from natural swarming—that 
is to say, a8 soon as the state of the weather and 
the evidence of crowding in the hive have given 
signs of a need for increased storing room. The 
best time, as given in “The Apiary,” is ten in the 
morning upon a fine summer’s day. 
