AETIFIOIAL SWARMING, 188 



set, without crushing any of them, upon its old spot, in the 

 place of the decoy hive, so that all the bees which have 

 returned from abroad, may enter. Before this change is 

 made, these bees will be running in and out of the empty 

 hive, in a stale of the greatest distraction, but as soon as the 

 opportunity is given them, they will crowd into their well- 

 known home, and if there are no royal cells started, will 

 proceed, almost at once, to construct them, and the next day 

 they will act as though the forced swarm had left of its own 

 accord. When the operation is delayed until about the 

 season for natural swarming, the hive will contain immature 

 queens, if the bees were intending to swarm, and a new 

 queen will soon take the place of the old one, just as in nat- 

 ural swarming. If it is performed too early, and before the 

 drones have made their appearance, the young queen will 

 not be seasonably impregnated, and the parent stock must 

 perish. As soon as the foraging bees have entered the hive, 

 it should be removed to a new stand, and the entrance con- 

 tracted to suit the reduced force of the colony. 



We return now to our forced swarm. The hive inwhich 

 they are to be put should be all ready, according to the 

 directions given in the previous chapter, and placed where 

 the old colony stood, so that the bees may be shaken out 

 from the box, upon a sheet, and made to enter it like a new 

 swarm. They will at once proceed to work with as much 

 vigor as though they had swarmed in the natOral way. 



It might seem as though this process would be much 

 simpler if the new hive was used for the decoy hive, and the 

 old one carried to its new location as soon as the forced 

 swarm was made. But such a procedure would almost ruin 

 the old colony. Unless a very large number of bees were left 

 in it, nearly all of them, when they came out to work, would 

 return to the old stand and join the new colony there, and 



