296 miner's AMERICAN 



clustered on the combs, and stood awhile to watch the 

 result. At first they did not seem to notice her, but 

 presently, two or three workers extended their antennae 

 towards her, and at once appeai-ed excited ; and in a 

 few minutes, a dozen or more gathered around, holding 

 her a close prisoner. She endeavored to extricate her- 

 self from them, and very plainly articulated the sound of 

 peep, peep. I heard it as distinctly as I could hear a 

 chicken's call. She soon disappeared in the mass of 

 bees, and I saw nothing more of her. 



This was a queen that had been reared from the 

 worker larvae, that I had introduced into her hive, some 

 three months before. 



The benefit to be derived from artificial swarming, is 

 in cases where families send oflT no swarms, as often oc- 

 curs, from causes already narrated. 



The method of performing the operation is as follows : 

 take a clean empty hive, and attach at the top, in one 

 corner, a small piece of brood-comb, containing both 

 eggs and larvae ; at least larvae in cells not sealed over. 

 The younger they are the better, and even eggs alone 

 are sufficient, since an egg of to-day, will become larva 

 to-morrow or next day. The manner of attaching the 

 comb is as described at page 201, and the utmost care 

 is requisite, in order to cement it firmly. When that is 

 done, on a fine day about 11 or 12 o'clock, as the great- 

 est number of bees are out at those hours, you then 

 remove the stock with surplus numbers, to a new situa- 

 tion, as far off as convenient, and not less than ten feet; 

 and if you can brush off a portion of bees, that cluster 



