ARTIFICIAL SWARUma. 187 



requires a knowledge of the most important points in the 

 economy of the bee-hive ; indeed, the same remark may be 

 made of almost any operation, and those who are willing to 

 remain ignorant of the laws which regulate the breeding of 

 bees, ought not to depart in the least from the old-fashioned 

 mode of management. All such deviations will only be 

 attended with a wanton sacrifice of bees. A man may use 

 the common swarming hives a whole life-time, and yet 

 remain ignorant of the very first principles in the physiology 

 of the bee, unless he gains his information from other 

 sources ; while, by the use of my hives, any intelligent 

 cultivator may, in a single season, verify for himself, the 

 discoveries which have only been made by the accumulated 

 toil of many observers, for more than two thousand years. 

 The ease with which Apiarians may now, by the sight of 

 their own eyes, gain a knowledge of all the important facts 

 in the economy of the hive, should stimulate them most pow- 

 erfully, to study the nature of the bee, and thus to prepare 

 themselves for an enlightened system of management. 



I doubt not that most bee-keepers, on reading this mode 

 of creating new colonies, will be ready to object that it not 

 only requires more skill, but more labor than to allow them 

 to swarm, and then to hive them in the old fashioned way. 



By the aid of the movable comb hive artificial swarming 

 may be most expeditiously performed. An empty hive with its 

 frames properly arranged must be in readiness to receive the 

 new swarm (See p. 156-7). After removing the parent hive a 

 short distance, and putting the decoy hive on its stand, the cov- 

 er should be taken off, and the bees by a quick motion or jerk, 

 shaken from the frames on a sheet directly in front of the 

 new hive.* As fast as a comb is deprived of its bees it 



»Full directions will be given further on in this chapter for opening 

 hives and removing combs. 



