artificial swarming. 
153 
practice, requires more skill, care, labor, and time, than 
are necessary to manage the ordinary swarming-hives. 
The failure, on the part of experienced, as well as inex- 
perienced Apiarians, of so many attempts to increase col- 
onies by artificial means, has led many to advocate the 
general use of non-swarming hives. In such hives, very 
large harvests of hpney are often obtained from strong 
stocks of bees ; but it is evident that if the formation of 
new colonies were generally discouraged, the insect would 
soon be exterminated. 
Although the movable-comb hive may be made more 
effectually to prevent swarming than any with which I am 
acquainted, still there are some objections to the non- 
swarming plan which cannot be removed. To say nothing 
of its preventing the increase of stocks, bees usually work 
with diminished vigor, after they have been kept in a non- 
swarming hive for several seasons. This will be obvious 
to any one who will compare the super-abounding energy 
of a new swarm, with the more sluggish working of even 
a much stronger non-swarming stock. 
An old queen, whose fertility has become impaired, can 
be easily caught and removed, in the movable-comb hive ; 
but when hives are used in which this cannot be done, the 
Apiary will contain queens that have passed their prime, 
and some which may die when there are no eggs from 
which others can be reared. 
On no subject has the author of this work experimented 
more fully than on that of Artificial Swarming ; and those 
bee-keepers to whom this chapter may, at first, seem need- 
lessly diffuse, will find that it contains many important 
principles, which, in any other connection, would probably 
have required even more fullness of detail. 
Before detailing the various methods of Artificial 
Swarming which may be practiced in the movable-comb 
