floor-board some small wooden wedges, in order to facilitate the entrance of the bees.

If the bees are on the ground, place your hive over them on two laths of wood, taking care not to crush them; they will then go up into the hive. If they are against the trunk of a tree or a wall, they must be made to fall into the hive by using a broom in the way we have described above. When once the queen is in the hive, the bees will beat a retreat, and all those of the same swarm will unite together. If not, the operation must be recommenced.

When the bees of a swarm are nearly all massed together in one spot, they must be hived before the evening; for, if not, there is a risk of losing them altogether, since it often happens that, after searching about for a suitable spot, they will go off again at the moment you least expect it. Sometimes even, notwithstanding all precautions, it is impossible to keep the bees in a hive at all, although they may have been hived several times.

If the weather be bad, it is advisable to give the bees some food for a few days after hiving the swarm.

We are of opinion, however, that natural

E

swarming should be discouraged, not only on account of the loss of time which it occasions, but also because of the difficulties incident on the hiving of swarms; in a word, because the hopes of the bee-master are too often disappointed by keeping to this system.

CHAPTER IX.

ON ARTIFICIAL SWARMS.

SWARMS BY DIVISION.

IN order to make an artificial swarm from an old hive in which natural swarming has ceased, and with greater reason from a hive in good condition, it is only necessary to place the old hive on the top of one of our hives, without any board between the two. Care should be taken to smear the corners of the wooden hive and the projecting parts of the straw hive with

mortar.

In every case, it is necessary that all crevices should be carefully closed up, the best kind of plaster for doing this being a mixture made of a third part of lime and two thirds of cow-dung; but it is necessary that the plaster should be thick, and also it ought not to be allowed to

penetrate unnecessarily into the corners of the wooden hive, or into the interior of the projecting part of the straw hive.

The bees will hasten to fill the lower hive. As soon as they have done so, remove the straw hive, turn it over with care, and after having scraped off the plaster which clings to the sides, make sure that the combs contain brood, and moreover brood which is not more than three days old. Unless this is the case the bees will not be able to make a queen. Place this hive on a floor-board, at some distance from the lower hive, which remains in its old place. Your swarm will thus be made; for in whichever of the two hives there is no queen, the bees will hasten to construct a good number of royal cells, and at the end of from eleven to fifteen days, the division, which before had no queen, will now be provided with one.

As the bees of the hive, or rather compartment, which has been removed to a distance, will not gather any honey for several days, or work in any manner away from home, they should be provided with some water in a small wooden trough for three or four days. This trough should be put under a super placed on

the hive, and the entrance of the hive should be diminished.

If, instead of a straw skep, there happen to be two wooden hives placed one above the other, when both are filled-always supposing that the top one has from the first contained the colony, with their combs-the two hives must be divided in the way pointed out above, and the swarm is made. You can, at will, leave either the upper or lower compartment in the place which the hive originally occupied. Moreover, as your hive is already stocked with honey, there is no danger of the swarm being unable to provide for itself.

SWARMS BY DISPLACING.

A second method of multiplying swarms, in a good year, consists in taking one or more combs full of brood at different stages of maturity, and in placing them in an empty hive, together with the bars on which they are built. Remove a well-filled hive at about eleven o'clock in the morning, on a fine day, in the second fortnight in May, if in the plain, or at a distance from the mountains; or, up to