148 
TITE HIVE AND IIONET-BEE. 
The ancient methods of artificial increase appear to have 
met with little success ; but towards the close of the last 
century, a new interest was awakened on the subject, by 
the discovery of Schirach, a German clergyman, of the 
fact, previously known to a few, that bees are able to rear 
a queen from worker-brood. For want, however, of an 
acquaintance with some important principles in the econ¬ 
omy of bees, his efforts met with but slender encourage¬ 
ment. 
lluber, after his splendid discoveries in the physiology 
of the bee, felt the need of some way of multiplying col¬ 
onies, more reliable than that of natural swarming. His 
hive consisted of twelve frames, each an inch and a quar¬ 
ter in width, which were connected together by hinges, 
so that any one could be opened or shut at pleasure, like 
the leaves of a book, lie recommends forming artificial 
swarms, by dividing one of these hives, and adding six 
empty frames to each half. After using his hive for years, I 
found that it could be made serviceable only by an adroit 
and fearless Apiarian. The bees fasten the frames with 
their propolis, so that they cannot easily be opened, with¬ 
out jarring the combs, and exciting their anger; or shut, 
without constant danger of crushing them— Huber no¬ 
where speaks of having multiplied colonies extensively by 
such hives, and although they have been in use more than 
sixty years, they have never been successfully employed 
for such a purpose. If lie had contrived a plan for giving 
his frames the requisite play, by suspending them on 
giving directions for making artificial swarms. Although ho taught how to furnish 
a queen to a destitute colony, and how to transfer brood-comb, with maturing 
bees, from a strong stock to a woak one, he doos not appear to have formed entirely 
□ew colonics by any artificial process. His treatise on bee-keeping shows not only 
that he was well acquainted with previous writers on the subject, but that ho was 
also a successful practical Apiarian. Its precepts, with but few exceptions, are 
truly admirable, and prove that in his time bee-keeping, with the uiaeses. must 
have been far in advance of what it now is. 
