PREVENTING AFTER-SWARMS—ARTIFICIAL INCREASE. O99 
young queen is at hand and it is desirable to replace the old queen, all 
cells but one may be destroyed, but this must on no account be jarred 
or dented. The danger of overlooking a cell where the hive is crowded 
with bees makes this method somewhat uncertain; moreover, when the 
bees have once got the “swarming fever” they may Swarm again with- 
out preparation in the way of queen cells. It is also very troublesome 
to remove supers to get at the brood combs. These difficulties will 
induce many who may wish to limit the number of their colonies to 
prefer hiving the swarms on starters of foundation on the old stands 
and giving them the supers, while the parent colonies are placed near 
them with entrances turned away for afew days. The flight bees return, 
of course, to the old stand. The parent colony should be turned a little 
each day so as to bring it in five or six days side by side with the hive 
containing -the swarm, which is on the old stand, and make its front 
face in the same way. By lifting it a day or so later, while the young 
bees are flying, over to the opposite side of the old stand and turning 
its entrance away from that of the hive on this stand, the bees that are 
flying, as well as those that have marked their last location, will join the 
swarm; and if the same operation be repeated at the end of another 
week most of the remaining bees will find their way within a day or 
two into the hive on the old stand. About this time—that is, some fif- 
teen or sixteen days after the issuance of the first swarm—the young 
queen will commence laying and may be put in place of the old one 
which issued with the swarm. If honey is still coming in, the young 
queen, with accompanying bees, may usually be safely introduced at this 
time by shaking them in front of the hive from which the queen has 
been removed, both lots of bees having been smoked beforehand so as 
to get them to fill themselves with honey; or the two combs between 
which the queen is found may be lifted, with adhering bees, and placed 
in the center of the colony to which the queen isto be given. Before 
doing this it is best to smoke the latter pretty thoroughly, and if two 
of the brood combs from this hive have been removed a few hours before 
and placed, after their bees have been shaken off, in the colony to be 
united, and all other combs taken away from the latter, the bees, with 
their queen, will be clustered on these brood combs, and they may be 
lifted up without disturbance and placed in the middle of the other hive, 
whose supers and cover are to be put in place at once and the bees left 
to quiet down and resume storing. Under these circumstances the loss 
of a queen will be very rare; nevertheless, in the case of an excep- 
tionally valuable one, cages and other methods are advisable. (See 
Chapter LX.) 
ARTIFICIAL INCREASE. 
The time lost in watching for swarms and hiving them, the occasional 
losses of swarms, and the vexations attendant upon their issuance, such 
as their clustering in tall trees, uniting and killing queens, and the 
delay in their swarming when the time has come for it, have led bee 
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