FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 165 



swaxm may re-issue in a day or two. She may be lost, but at 

 this particular time her loss is not so very great. There is no 

 danger of the swarm being lost; it will return to the hive in a 

 few minutes; although I have known thpm to cluster for half 

 an hour or more before returning. It may happen, sometimes, 

 that a swarm may go into a hive whose colony has swarmed 

 a little while before, and where it is always peacefully received. 

 I do not like this doubling up, but I do not know that I lose 

 any thing by it, for the bees can store up just as much in one 

 hive as in another. 



When the watcher finds the queen, she is caged. Either 

 the cage is held down for her to run into, or she is caught and 

 then caged. After the queen is in the cage, the block is pushed 

 in an inch or so, and the cage put where the bees can take care 

 of it. Usually it is thrust into the entrance, close up against 

 the bottom-bars, so that if a cool night should come there will 

 be no danger that the bees will desert it. 



The watcher keeps a little memorandum book, and puts 

 down in it the number of the colony that swarmed ; for it might 

 make bad work if it should be forgotten and neglected until the 

 emergence of a young queen to lead out an absconding swarm. 



DOOLITTLE'S PLAN. 



Some years ago Mr. G. M. Doolittle gave a plan for man- 

 agement of swarming colonies when no increase was desired. 

 I do not think that he uses it now. I do not know that I shall 

 ever use it again, and yet it was valuable to me, and for some 

 circumstances nothing may be better. The plan, in brief, was 

 this: The queen being caged and left in the hive, all queen- 

 cells are cut out in five days from the time the swarm issued, 

 and five days later all queen-cells are again cut out and the 

 queen set at liberty. 



I used this one season with great satisfaction, and I do not 

 remember that any colony thus treated swarmed again. 



VARYING DOOLITTLE'S PLAN. 



The next season I varied the plan. Instead of leaving the 

 queen with the colony to remaili idle for ten days, I took her 



