22 SUCCESSFUL BEE-KEEPING. 
only rests within the royal cradle reared with so much so- 
licitude and care, while the disconsolate, cheerless flock, 
being rapidly decimated, hum listlessly in and out of the 
hive with coarse, rough voices, ungainly carriage, and 
murmurs plainly audible. Just place a queen among 
them—in an instant their voices change. The well 
known hum of joy is heard within, and answering voices 
on the wing without, join in the chorus, while quick as 
thought, away flies many a winged messenger, to distant 
heath and forest flower, to return with bright golden pel- 
lets of pollen, and heavily laden with delicious nectar to 
proffer to their newly-found queen. 
ABILITY TO SUPPLY THEMSELVES WITH A QUEEN. 
The ability of a swarm of bees to supply themselves 
with a queen from an egg which under other circumstan- 
ces would have produced a worker, although not known 
to the mass of bee-keepers, even of the present day, is not 
a new discovery, but has been well known for many years, 
and various methods of artificial multiplication of colonies 
founded thereon have been proposed. Some of the most 
plausible of these methods we purpose here to notice, 
giving the claims of their inventors, and at the same time 
pointing out as briefly as possible their practical work- 
ings, while we shall also notice their defects and endeavor 
to show just wherein they have been, to a greater or less 
extent, failures, that the intelligent reader may contrast 
these various methods with our own system, and judge for 
himself of their comparative merits. 
First, then, let us notice the Piling, or “Nadir Hiving” 
system, so called because it consists in placing a series 
of boxes, one upon another, leaving the bees to work 
