artificial swarming. 
183 
as is well known—often very much injures the parent- 
stock, although its queeijs are rapidly maturing ; but the 
forced mother-stock may have to start theirs almost from 
the egg. By giving it a fertile queen, and retaining 
enough adhering bees to develop the brood, a moderate 
swarm may be safely taken away in ten or twelve days, 
and the mother-stock left in a far better condition than if 
it had parted with two natural swarms. In favorable 
seasons and localities, this process may be repeated four 
or five times, at intervals of ten days, and if no combs are 
removed, the mother-stock will still be well supplied with 
brood and mature bees. Indeed, the judicious removal 
of bees, at proper* intervals, often leaves it, at the close 
of the Summer, better supplied than non-swarming stocks 
with maturing brood ; the latter having—in the expressive 
language of an old writer—“ waxed over fat.”f I have 
had stocks which, after parting with four swarms in the 
way above described, have stored their hives with buck¬ 
wheat honey, besides yielding a surplus in boxes. 
This method of artificial increase, which resembles 
* If a strong stock of bees, in a hive of moderate size, is examined, at the height 
of the honey-harvest, nearly all the cells will often be found full of brood, honey, 
or bee-bread. The great laying of the queen is over—not as some imagine, be¬ 
cause her fertility has decreased, but simply for want of room for more brood. A 
q iceu in such a colony, or In a hivo having few bees, often appears almost as 
slender as one still unfertile; but if she has plenty of bees and empty comb given 
to her, her proportions will soon bocome very much enlarged. (P. 47.) 
t Columella had noticed that, in very productive seasons, strong stocks, If left 
to themselves, fill up their brood-combs with honey, instead of rearing young bees, 
lie advises the unskillful, instead of being pleased with this apparent gain, to shut 
up their hives every third day, and thus compel the bees to attend to breeding I 
This gives the queen a chance to deposit eggs in the cells from which the young 
bees hatch, before they are filled with honey; and no bettor plan can be devised 
for the common hives. 
In the movable-comb hives, a few of the combs nearest the ends may be taken 
out, and as many empty frames put between every two of the central combs; 
theso will at once be supplied with combs, in which the queen will deposit eggs. 
It would seem that, while the instincts of the bees teach them to reap all the egga 
deposited in cells, their avaricious properties often—ns in human beings—got the 
