240 AETIFICIAL SWAKMIKG. 



471. Messrs. Langstroth and Dzierzon were the first ob- 

 servers who had noticed the bearing of this remarkable fact 

 on artificial increase. It may, at first, seem unaccountable 

 that bees should build only comb unfit for breeding, when 

 their young queen will so soon require worker-cells for her 

 eggs ; but it must be borne in mind, that at such times they 

 are in an ^'abnormal" condition. In a state of nature, 

 they seldom swarm until their hive is full of comb ; or if 

 they do, their numbers are so reduced, that they are rarely 

 able to resume comb-building, until the young queen has 

 hatched. 



The determination of bees having no mature queen, to 

 build comb designed only for storing honey, and unfit for 

 rearing workers, shows very clearly the folly of attempting 

 to multiply colonies by dividing-hives, unless the greater 

 part of the bees are given to the queen, and the greater part 

 of the combs to the queenless half. 



When the queenless part proceeds to supply her loss, if it 

 has bees enough to build new comb, it wiU build such as is 

 designed only for storing honey. The next year, if this 

 hive is divided, one-half will contain nearly all the brood, 

 while the other, having most of its combs fit only for storing 

 honey, or raising drones, will be a complete failure. 



So uniformly do bees with an unhatehed queen build 

 coarse, or drone-comb, that often a glance at the combs of 

 a new colony, will show either that it is queenless, or that, 

 having been so, it has just reared a new queen (229). 



472. Some Apiarists have attempted to multiply their 

 colonies, by removing, when thousands of its inmates are 

 ranging the fields, a strong stock to a new stand, and setting 

 in its place an empty hive, with a frame of brood-comb, suit- 

 able for raising a queen. This method is stiU worse than 

 the one just described. One half of the dividing-hive was 

 filled with breeding comb, while this empty hive having next 

 to none, all that is built before the queen hatches, will be 



