234 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
in his choice of plans ; but with the single excep- 
tion that it may be performed by lamplight 
much more easily than those who have never 
tried it could imagine, it has little to recommend it, 
as, for expeditious swarming, removal of queens, &c., 
it is not to be compared with “ open driving,’^ which 
differs from the foregoing in placing the hive to re- 
ceive the driven, or forced, swarm over the other, at 
an angle, as in Fig. 67. One, or better two, stout 
kitchen skewers, thrust, a hand-breadth apart, through 
the edge of the receiving skep {rs), into the rim of the 
lower one, serve to keep the two in the right relative 
position, which should present the least possible im- 
pediment to the bees in their upward march. The 
union should occur at the part of the circumference 
opposite the ends of the combs, as the several seams 
of bees between them are thus more readily enabled 
to pass into the receiving skep, and here it is that 
they seethe out in the greatest numbers. The 
shadows in the Figure show how the light should 
fall. Let the operator stand with his back to it, and 
with the skewers opposite to him, so as to command 
a perfect view of all that passes within. He may 
grasp, with one hand, the front edge of the receiving 
skep, which thus becomes the lid of a box, kept par- 
tially open, while the skewers form the hinge ; but 
Mr. Hunter introduced a small wire appliance to fix 
the hives together, and added the driving-irons (dt), 
as in the Figure, for holding the upper skep at any 
desired angle. Pointed sticks, pressed firmly into the 
straw of both hives, answer every purpose, having, 
like the driving-irons, the very considerable ad- 
