FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 195 



swarms. It is the simple plan of making a shaken swarm, say 

 from A, and then piling all the brood from A on another 

 strong colony, B. European beekeepers tell us that with this 

 accession of brood B will not swarm. S. Simmins, of Eng- 

 land, and some others, give A half the bees from B. A would 

 be aU right for comb honey, but B would not — at least not 

 right away — ^but it would be all right for extracted honey. 



ACCIDENTAL SWARMS. 



The best I can do there will sometimes be what might be 

 called accidental swarms. Perhaps a strong colony has in 

 some way lost its queen in the busy season, and when the first- 

 reared young queen emerges — if one is allowed to emerge — 

 there will surely be a swarm issue. Generally such a thing will 

 be headed ofE before the young queen has a chance to emerge, 

 but once in a great while she gets ahead of me. 



Although there is to me nothing entrancing in the sight of 

 such a swarm whirling through the air, there is one thing I do 

 very much enjoy in it — it is the sight of the seething mass 

 hurrying into the hive when dumped in front of it, as in Fig. 

 69. You will see that a deep bottom-board has been placed 

 in front of No. 32, on which the swarm was dmnped (it had 

 previously settled on a low plum tree), and the bees have 

 flowed all over the sides of the bottom-board, and also over the 

 front of the hive. But I don't want the distress of seeing them 

 pouring out of the hive in a swarm for the sake of the plea- 

 sure of seeing them hustle back into the same hive when 

 dumped down in front of it. 



TAKING OFF SECTIONS. 



As fast as supers are filled they are taken off. I do not 

 think I could be bothered to take off each section as fast as 

 finished, putting in an empty one to take its place. It would 

 take too much time. Neither do I like to wait till every section 

 in a super is entirely finished. Unless the bees are crowded 

 very much, there will be some uncapped cells in the outside 

 sections which the bees will be very long in sealing. If these 

 are waited for, the central sections may lose a little of their 



