SWARMING AND HIVINS. 163 



in Winter, against cold, and those sudden changes to unsea- 

 sonable warmth, by which bees are tempted to come out and 

 perish in large numbers on the snow ; and the colonies are 

 thus prevented from breeding on a large scale, as early as 

 they otherwise would. Under such circumstances, they can 

 make no profitable use of the early honey-harvest ; and they 

 will swarm so late, if they swarm at all, as to have but little 

 opportunity for laying up surplus honey, while often they do 

 not gather enough even for their own use, and their owner 

 closes the season by purchasing honey to preserve them from 

 starvation. The way in which I give the bees that amount 

 of protection in Winter, which conduces most powerfully to 

 early swarming, has already been described in the Chapter 

 on Protection. 



2. Another serious objection to all the ordinary swarming 

 hives, is the vexatious fact that if the bees swarm at all, 

 they are liable to swarm so often as to destroy the value of 

 both the parent stock and the after-swarms. Experienced 

 bee-keepers obviate this difficulty, by uniting second swarms, 

 so Eis to nrake one good colony out of two ; and they return 

 to the parent stock all swarms after the second, and even 

 this if the season is far advanced. Such operations consume 

 much time, and often give much more trouble than they are 

 worth. By removing all the queen cells but one,, after the 

 first swarm has left, second swarming in ray hives will al- 

 ways be prevented ; and by removing all but two, provision 

 may be made for the issue of second swarms, and yet all 

 after-swarming be prevented. The process of returning 

 after-swarms is not only objectionable, on account of the 

 time it requires, having in many instances to be repeated 

 again and again before one Queen is allowed to destroy the 

 ethers; but it also causes a large portion of the gathering 

 season to be wasted ; for the bees seem unwilling to work 



