252 lORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



93. Often, however, when it is convenient, I take from 

 a nucleus the frame on which the queen is found, and 

 put frame and all in the queenless hive. If this is done 

 at a time when honey is yielding, there is little or no 

 danger, providing the colony has been queenless long 

 enough to be fully conscious of its queenlessness. In- 

 deed, I have introduced many a queen during the harvest 

 into a colony conscious of its queenlessness, by merely 

 taking out a frame of brood and dropping the queen 

 among the bees on the middle of the comb. If I wish to 

 run no risk whatever, as in the case of a valuable im- 

 ported queen, I put in a hive without any bees several 

 frames with no unsealed brood, but with plenty of sealed 

 brood, some of it just emerging, and then closing the 

 hive bee-tight put it where there is no danger of the 

 brood being chilled. One way to do this is to put it over 

 a strong colony, wire-cloth preventing the passage of the 

 bees from one hive to the other. At the end of five days 

 the hive can be set on its own stand, and these five-day- 

 old bees, under the stress of necessity, will soon be seen 

 carrying in pollen. 



ARTIFICIAL INCREASE. 



Fighting so bitterly against all increase by swarm- 

 ing, I would run out of bees entirely if I did not resort 

 to artificial increase. Without pretending to give all 

 the ways by which increase has been made, I may tell 

 just a little about it. 



One can make increase by drawing brood or bees, or 

 both, from colonies that are working for honey, and 

 thus keep all the old colonies storing, and at the same 

 time make the desired increase. In that way the largest 

 number of colonies possible are kept at work on the 

 harvest, and one might have a feeling that all the in- 

 crease was clear gain. But the feeling is a delusive one. 



