278 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
building comb outside their hive ; and but few bee- 
keepers of experience have not seen it in porches, 
under stools, between skeps and the wall, and such 
like places : while, in rare instances, colonies will 
swarm persistently with their hive only partially 
furnished with comb. Notwithstanding such infrequent 
and anomalous cases, giving room within the hive, in 
advance of the requirements of the bees, may be 
broadly stated to prevent swarming. It must be given 
in advance, because the future is the child of the past, 
for, if the swarming impulse already possesses the 
colony, while their drones are hatching and their 
queen-cells are started, swarming becomes, in a 
measure, forced, and the enlargement of the hive will 
not prevent it. 
If we are working for extracted honey (see Ex- 
traction), the problem is a comparatively easy one, 
for the laden bees can always have abundant ac- 
commodation provided for them ; so that the brood- 
nest never need be choked by store, while the number 
of combs it is allowed to occupy is not very material ; 
but the details of the method must be left until Honey 
becomes our subject. In working for comb honey 
the case is far different. If the hive be extremely 
large, the brood-nest and honey-store together only 
fill it, and, practically, get mixed up together, while 
the supers are untouched. If the hive be small, and 
the brood-nest contracted, the conditions which in- 
duce colonisation are soon reached, and much trouble, 
delay, and loss may result. Adding sections at the 
right moment, and replacing filled boxes by empty 
ones as necessity required, perhaps, in most cases. 
