76 AN EASY METHOD 



soon as the young swarm can be hived. If the operation is 

 performed before first swarming, their owner will be sure to 

 lose one swarm in the wanton destruction of eggs, larvse and 

 chrysalides; and if it is done after the first swarm leaves, 

 before a queen is heard, he will get the bees without a queen, 

 because the old queen leaves the hive with the first swarm, 

 and another is not usually hatched sooner than seven, eight, 

 or nine days after first swarming : and if transferring is de- 

 layed until the swarming season is through, the bees will 

 not make a sufficient quantity of comb to cluster in, nor 

 honey enough to sustain them through the following winter. 

 We would not be understood to approve of transferring 

 from the old box until the comb is so old as to produce 

 dwarfs. During the several years which have elapsed since 

 our last edition was published, we have not discontinued our 

 experiments in transferring bees ; and it may be proper to 

 remark that since, in Western Vermont, a great change in 

 the seasons has transpired concerning the apiary, and bees 

 have been unable to procure as much honey as formerly, we 

 have done but little in transferring them according to the 

 foregoing rules ; yet we consider these rules unfailing, when 

 the seasons are favorable for bees, though we think our prac- 

 tice for a few years has been better adapted to the wants and 

 interests of the apiary. It is this : — We examine all the 

 hives about the first of October, when all or nearly all the 

 young bees are hatched ; select such hives only as seem to 

 need feeding, and after puffing one or two blasts of segar- 

 smoke at the bottom of the hive, remove it from its place, 

 and turn it bottom upwards. Eemove, with a pruning-knife, 

 all the honey and comb, and brush the bees into a body, 

 upon the ground. After securing the honey from robbers, 

 take away the queen, and the swarm will be soon found to 

 enter the hives of their nearest neighbors, where they will 



