ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 
199 
colonies. For these and other reasons, I much prefer the 
methods which I have devised, for dispensing with so much 
opening of hives and handling of combs. If, however, 
any of the new colonies are weak enough to need it, they 
may be helped to combs from stronger stocks. 
Whatever method of artificial increase is pursued by 
the Apiarian, he should never reduce the strength of his 
mother-stocks , so as seriously to cripple the reproductive 
power of their queens. This principle should be to him 
as “the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth 
notfor while a queen, with an abundance of worker- 
comb and bees, may, in a single season, become the parent 
of a number of prosperous families, if her colony, at the 
beginning of the swarming season, is divided into three 
or four parts, not one of them will ordinarily acquire 
stores enough to survive the Winter. 
If the Apiarian is in the vicinity of sugar-houses, con¬ 
fectioneries, or other tempting places of bee-resort, he will 
find his stocks, both old and new, so depopulated by their 
zeal for ill-gotten gains, as to be in danger of perishing. 
In such situations, all attempts at rapid increase are 
entirely futile. 
Artificial operations of all kinds are most successful 
when bee-forage is abundant ; when it is scarce they are 
quite precarious, even if the colonies are well supplied 
with food. 
When bees arc not busy in honey-gathering, they have 
leisure to ascertain the condition of weak stocks, which 
are almost certain to be robbed, if they are incautiously 
opened. When forage is scarce, the hives should be 
opened before sunrise, or after sunset, or when very few 
bees are flying abroad; and if it is necessary to open them 
at other times, they must be removed out of the reach of 
annoyance from other colonies. The Apiarian who doe* 
