CHAPTER XVIII. 
EQUALIZING COLONIES. 
Iw case one hive contain a superabundance of bees, and the stock in 
another have become weak, in consequence of throwing off two or 
more swarms, or any other cause, an equalization may be effected 
very easily, and benefit the weaker colony very much, while it will 
not prove the least detrimental to the other. All that is necessary to 
be done is to change places with the hives; if the bees should be clus- 
tering on the outside of the hive of the strong colony, remove it a 
short distance (say twenty-five or thirty feet) from its former position ; 
set the other hive where it stood, then brush the surplus bees from 
the former on to a cloth, and set the hive in the place where the other 
was removed from; the bees that are left on the cloth will immediate- 
ly return to their former alighting place, and enter with the weak col- 
ony; and for several days following many of the bees that sally forth 
to the fields from the strong colony, will return to the place of their 
former residence, and unite with the weaker one. 
SWARMS CONSIST OF BEES OF ALL AGES. 
Many persons (and bee-keepers, too,) are of opinion that swarms 
are composed entirely of young bees, and that those that remain in 
the parent hive are bees of the previous year, but this is a mistaken 
idea; swarms are composed of a mixture of old and young bees, and 
are led off by the old queen. They appear to issue forth at the time 
of swarming, without regard to age, leaving also a mixture of all ages 
in the parent hive. A majority of course, in both families, are young 
bees, as four-fifths of the whole population is produced every spring. 
