ARTIFICIAL SWARMS. 159 



soon be made strong and powerful. Put the empty 

 combs taken from the artificial swarm into the hive, 

 in exchange for those taken out that were full of 

 eggs and brood; the queen will immediately com- 

 mence depositing eggs in these combs, and in a few 

 days they will again be full of brood. In this way 

 I worked many of my queens the past season to their 

 full capacity of laying eggs, which is truly astonish- 

 ing during the time when honey is abundant, or 

 when receiving a bountiful supply of feed, which 

 stimulates her to greater activity in the performance 

 of her maternal duties. 



This plan of changing combs is decidedly safer 

 and much better than Mr. Langstroth's mode of 

 changing the fertile queen from hive to hive, as it is 

 well known that if a strange queen is placed in a 

 colony, although they may have been destitute for 

 some time, they are apt to fall on her and kill her, 

 unless she is first put into a queen cage and kept in 

 the hive for some hours, until she has obtained the 

 same scent, before releasing her, when they will gen- 

 erally receive her. This process is attended with 

 much trouble and loss of valuable time, as well as 

 uncertainty and even danger of losing the queen. 



When a nucleus comprises four or five full sized 

 combs, well stored with brood, and a proportion of 

 honey and pollen well covered with bees, having a 

 fertile queen, they require but little further attention, 

 except to remove the frame covered with cloth and 

 give them one or two empty frames at a time. 

 "When these are partially supplied with combs, add 



