130 
Tire riTVR AND IIONEY-BEE. 
used lor new swarms. Bees, when they swarm, being 
unnaturally excited and heated, often refuse to enter such 
hives, and at best, are slow in taking possession of them. 
The temperature of the parent-stock, at the moment of 
swarming, rises very suddenly, and many bees are often 
so drenched with perspiration, that they are unable to 
take wing and join the emigrating colony. To attempt 
to make swarming bees enter a heated hive in a blazing 
sun, is, therefore, as irrational as it would be to force a 
panting crowd of human beings into the suffocating at¬ 
mosphere of a close garret. If the process of hiving can¬ 
not be conducted in the shade, the hive should be covered 
with a sheet, or with leafy boughs. 
In the movable-comb hive, the Apiarian can use all his 
good worker-comb, by fastening it in the frames. Such, 
however, is the shape of the artificial guide-combs in 
these frames, that the bees, even in an empty hive, will 
almost always build their combs with great regularity, 
if they are not furnished with too much empty room. I 
have, in a few instances, known them to build their combs 
directly across, from frame to frame, so that they could 
not be removed without cutting them to pieces. This 
may easily be prevented, by attaching a piece of guide- 
comb to a single frame (see p. 72). While the hive should 
be set so as to incline from rear to front, to shed the 
rain, there ought not to be the least pitch from side to 
side , or it will prevent the frames from hanging plumb, 
and compel the bees to build crooked combs. Drone- 
combs should never be put in the frames, or the bees will 
follow the pattern, and build comb suitable only for breed¬ 
ing a horde of useless consumers. Such comb, if white, 
may be used to great advantage in the surplus honey- 
boxes ; if old, it should be melted for wax. 
Every piece of good worker-comb, if large enough to 
