On Artificial Swarfns. 
53 
the hive, and the entrance of the hive should 
be diminished. 
If, instead of a straw skep, there happen to 
be two wooden hives placed one above the 
other, when both are filled — always supposing 
that the top one has from the first con- 
tained the colony, with their combs — the two 
hives must be divided in the way pointed out 
above, and the swarm is made. You can, at 
will, leave either the upper or lower compart- 
ment in the place which the hive originally 
occupied. Moreover, as your hive is already 
stocked with honey, there is no danger of the 
swarm being unable to provide for itself. 
SWARMS BY DISPLACING. 
A second method of multiplying swarms, in 
a good year, consists in taking one or more 
combs full of brood at different stages of 
maturity, and in placing them in an empty hive, 
together with the bars on which they are built. 
Remove a well-filled hive at about eleven 
o’clock in the morning, on a fine day, in the 
second fortnight in May, if in the plain, or 
at a distance from the mountains ; or, up to 
