CONTROLLED INCREASE. 
259 
diately drop in great part from the comb, and a 
second shake finishes the work quite sufficiently. 
Returning to the hive, we lift the queen, and release 
her amidst the rapidly-entering throng. So soon as 
she disappears under the edge of the straw, all 
anxiety respecting her is unnecessary. The process 
of throwing is continued with other frames until suffi- 
cient bees have been obtained to form the swarm. 
Regulating the frame distance in the parent stock, 
adjusting the dummy, and covering up snugly, so far 
completes the process, which should not, from the 
beginning, have occupied more than a quarter of an 
hour. 
Two cautions seem requisite. First, if nectar has 
been gathered freely into the frame hive, jerking off the 
bees is inappropriate, as the thin fluid is thus thrown 
from the combs, and, becoming rapidly viscid bv 
evaporation, may gum the bees together ; while newly- 
built, tender combs, would not bear, without fracture, 
the strain which jerking involves. In these cases, 
brushing must be adopted, the use of a feather or 
goose-wing being constantly recommended. I greatly 
prefer a painter’s large duster, but it must be rightly 
used. Rapidly whisking the very ends of the hairs over 
the bees, in the direction in which they are desired to 
drop, clears them off without irritation, in a manner I 
have never accomplished with a goose-wing. If the side 
of the brush be used, or if it be applied nervously 
and slowly, the bees get entangled, and, by buzzing, 
not only show their own anger, but excite that of the 
rest. Mr. McKnight says that he employs a tuft of 
long grass for this purpose with most satisfactory 
S 2 
