NATURAL INCREASE. 
163 
old home. Should the bee-keeper, however, know 
at the outset the stock whence the cast issued, it 
may, after hiving, be stood next its parent till even- 
ing, and then returned, by being thrown down in 
front, on a board or sheet. Yet this does not always 
end the trouble, the performance often needing to be 
repeated next day. Even if the queens in the cast 
have been captured, other cells hatch, and off may 
come new lots — possibly, as we have already seen, 
to the number of four or five. 
A better plan is to frame hive in the usual manner, 
and stand the cast as close as possible to the original 
stock, both doors facing one way ; or, if the hives have 
not fixed legs, one may be placed on the other. In 
two, or at most three, days, with very rare exceptions, 
all the queens, save one, will have been killed, both 
in stock and daughter. The queen in the latter we 
now remove, and then unite, either by putting all frames 
into the one hive, giving a little smoke, or by brush- 
ing the bees from their new worker-combs on to a 
board or sheet. Should we need young queens, we 
modify our procedure, and wait until mating has taken 
place, shutting the bees up, meanwhile, to few frames, 
so that all are covered. Now remove the queen, and 
introduce where required, and unite as before. A 
couple of casts, individually weak, and from different 
hives, if only of about the same age, may often most 
usefully in this fashion be made to furnish beautifully 
regular worker-comb (since casts build worker-comb 
only, unless they should lose their queen), and a 
supernumerary young fertile mother; while their union 
will make them into a good and strong stock. 
M 2 
