OF MANAGING BEES. 39 



ble, many evils are avoided, and many advantages realized: 

 every hive -will fit a place in the apiary, every drawer a hive, 

 and every bottom board and slide may in any case be used 

 without mistakes. 



Swarms may be doubled at any time before they become 

 so located as to resume their former hostility, which will 

 not be discovered before they have deposited some stores and 

 have property to protect. Bees are provided with a reser- 

 voir, or sac, to carry their provision in : and, when they 

 swarm, they go loaded with provision suited to their emer- 

 gency, jvhich takes off all their hostility towards each other ; 

 and, until these sacs are emptied, they are not easily vexed, 

 and, as they are compelled to build combs before they can 

 empty them, their contents in some of them are retained 

 several days. We have doubled, at a fortnight's interval 

 in swarming, with entire success. The operation should be 

 performed within two or three days — at the farthest, four 

 days. The sooner it is done, the less hazardous is the experi- 

 ment. Swarms of bees may be doubled at any time by fumi- 

 gating both colonies with tobacco-smoke, so as to sicken them 

 a little : the peculiar scent of each is rendered similar by 

 the effect of the smoke, and the two swarms mingle together 

 without manifesting any hostility towards each other. 



As a general rule, second swarms only should be doubled. 

 Third and fourth swarms should always have their queens 

 taken from them, and the bees returned to the parent stock, 

 according to Chapter X. (See Appendix on preventing ex- 

 cessive swarming.) 



