64 
BEE-CULTURE. 
better either to prevent after-swarms or run them back when 
they swarm, or unite two or three of them to make them very 
strong. To prevent a swarm from issuing or to put it hack 
insures the safety of the old stock from all the effects of weak- 
ness, and the honey that would have been made by the bees 
in a new hive would be made in surplus boxes of the old one. 
The united force of two or three small swarms will often 
make one very good one, which nothing but experience seems 
sufficient to convince most persons is worth more than three 
or four poor ones. Therefore, prevent after-swarming if you 
can ; if not, put them back into the hive they came out of, 
destroying the queen, if you can find her; or put two or three 
small swarms together. If you can kill all the queens but 
one, do so. A swarm can generally be run into another 
several days after they have been hived. It is often the case, 
that a colony will destroy a few intruders to their hive ; while 
a whole colony run in at once will overwhelm them, and they 
receive them as their equals. Should there be any show o 
resistance, a few whiffs of tobaceo-smoke among them wil 1 
generally restore peace. 
The plan I have just recommended, of supplying queens 
or queen-cells, has these advantages : They prevent tho apia- 
rian the disadvantages of after-swarms where they are not 
wanted. From five to ten thousand more bees will be reared 
by not having to wait for the development of queens in the 
ordinary way. And, what is certainly a matter of the highest 
importance is, the bec-lcecper can always furnish queens bred 
from lushest stocks, whether they benative or Italian. Somo few 
stocks of bees seem prosperous from generation to generation, 
producing most all the profits of the apiary; while others, seem- 
ingly with the same facilities, get nothing done. Always breed- 
ing from the best producers, I am fully convinced will very ma- 
terially improve the thrift of the apiary. Some queens breed 
but little ; to remove such and give them a good one is desir- 
able. From my own experience, also, I feel fully convinced 
that during the first and second years of a queen's life she is 
more prolific than in the after part ; and it is an advantage 
to replace the old queen with a young one. Keeping such a 
journal as I have recommended, would be of great advantage 
in the foregoing mode of management. 
