A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
69 
but at this particular time her loss is not so very great. 
There is no danger of the swarm being lost ; it will return to 
the hive in a few minutes, although I have known them to 
cluster for half an hour or more before returning. It may 
happen, sometimes, that a swarm may go into a hive w T hose 
colony has swarmed a little while before, and where it is 
always peacefully received. I do not like this doubling 
up, but I do not know that I lose anything by it, for the bees 
can store up just as much in one hive as another. 
When the watcher finds the queen, she is caged. Either 
the cage is held down for her to run into, or she is allowed to 
run up on the finger and then caged. After the queen is in 
the cage, the block is pushed in an inch or so, and the cage 
put where the bees can take care of it, usually in the vacant 
part of the brood-chamber, which is accessible without tak- 
ing off the super. The number of the hive is taken. 
A few years ago Mr. G. M. Doolittle gave a plan for 
management of swarming colonies when no increase was 
desired. I do not know T that he uses it now. I do not know 
that I shall ever use it again, and yet it was valuable to me, 
and for some circumstances nothing may be better. The 
plan, in brief, was this : The queen being caged and left in 
the hive, all queen-cells are cut out in five days from the time 
the swarm issued, and five days later ail queen-cells are 
again cut out and the queen set at liberty. 
I used this one season with great satisfaction, and I do not 
remember that any colony thus treated swarmed again. 
The next season I varied the plan. Instead of leaving the 
queen with the colony to remain idle for ten days, I took 
her away and gave her to a nucleus, a new colony, or where- 
ever a queen was needed. At the end of the ten days I 
returned her to the colony, placing her directly upon a comb 
taken from the middle of the brood-nest. Often, however, I 
gave them a different queen, for after an absence of ten days, 
I doubt if they could tell their own queen from any other. 
Besides, they were in a condition to take any queen without 
grumbling. 
