INSTRUCTIONS FOR ARTIFICIAL SWARMS. 223 



one, the issue of which would he a queen as perfect and 

 fully organized, as if she had emanated from a genuine royal 

 egg. We have already discussed this question fully in Chap. 

 IV. and having, we hope, successfully refuted the hypothesis 

 of the alleged power of the common bee to generate a queen 

 from a common bee, on the ground of its direct variance with 

 all the analogies of nature, we of course enter our caveat 

 against the practicability of forming an artificial swarm ac- 

 cording to the system of Schirach, and that we give our 

 unqualified assent to the principle of Wildman, namely, that 

 the egg introduced into the empty hive must be a royal one. 



We, however, object to the method of both Schirach and 

 Wildman, and for the very cogent reason, that we never 

 could succeed in retaining the bees in the hive unless they 

 had actually a queen with them, and that, in every instance 

 when we tried the experiment, we never could discern that 

 the bees paid the slightest attention to the eggs in the comb, 

 whether it were a royal or a common one. 



To those, however, who may wish to enjoy the amusement 

 of making an artificial swarm, we will lay down the system 

 as adopted by ourselves, and which was practised more for 

 the purpose of verifying particular circumstances in the 

 economy of the bee, than from any predilection for the prac- 

 tice, or from any intention of making it a general rule of our 

 management. 



The first point to be ascertained is the existence of drones, 

 without which it will be in vain to attempt the formation of 

 an artificial swarm. It must however, be particularly con- 

 sidered, that the system of operation differs according to the 

 shape of the hive in which the bees reside ; and of all shapes 

 the common bell hive is the most inconvenient, and we may 

 add, not only for this experiment, but for almost all the 

 experiments that are made with bees. As we have totally 

 discarded that kind of hive from our apiary, and make use 

 of no other but those of our own invention, we must 



