ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 87 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



ABTIFICIAL SWARMING. 



It does not pay to wait and watcli for hives casting, and 

 it does not pay to lose swarms. The adoption of the in- 

 valuable invention of swarming artificially saves the bee- 

 keeper from a world of anxiety and the loss of swarms. 

 Probably Bonner was the inventor of artificial swarming, 

 for he wrote a book about 80 years ago, which my father 

 read at the time. Bonner's system (with some slight 

 modifications) was adopted by my father, and carried into 

 practice for forty years. He swarmed his bees artificially 

 before he knew the value of fustian smoke for stupefying 

 them. After finishing his day's work, he often swarmed 

 three or four hives on an evening. The only bee-dress 

 he ever used was a cabbage-blade hung over his face ; and 

 this was for ever cast away when he was taught by an 

 Irishman to use the smoke of fustian rags. 



The bother of bee-keeping would be too great for us if 

 we did not swarm artificially. We can easily take off 

 four swarms in an hour ; and with the assistance of a lad 

 to drum a bit, we could take off six swarms, place them 

 all in proper places, and cover them up in less than an 

 hour. The process of artificial swarming is a very simple 

 affair — so simple that no person can see it done without 

 understanding it pretty well. 



It is more easily performed and sooner done than we 

 can describe it with our pen. Take a hive ready for 

 swarming, and a skep prepared to receive the swarm ; 

 another empty hive and a table-cloth or piece of calico 

 are required. These are placed some yards — it does not 

 matter how many — from the old hive to be swarmed. 



A few puffs of smoke are blown into the hive, which is 



