There is no part of the modern sys tem of bee management in which the advantages of the movable comb hive more particularly assert themselves than in the multiplication of stocks by artificial swarming. Anyone who can distinguish a queen bee from a worker or drone may perform this operation with perfect impunity and with certainty of success, provided the stock to be operated on is sufficiently strong and the ssason not too far advanced. It is only necessary to take a comb of brood and bees with the queen amongst them and place it in a hive similar to that from which it was taken, and set it (the new hive) in the place of the stock to he operated on, removing the latter to a new stand. The frame of comb, Ac., should ho placed, near the front or side of the hive, one other frame intervening, and three or four other frames having been properly placed and enclosed bv a. dummy, the j hive slum! \Ho covered do\vn v The old j slock should also be closed, a, dummy being placed at the eide or back of the hive to keep them sung and warm. The result of these proceedings will bo that almost every bee capable of taking the wing will join the swarm on tho old stand, while the young bees (in tho old stock) will hatch out of tho brood, raise queen cells, and provide them selves with a new sovereign. It is best, where possible, to giro tho old stock a ripe queen-coil the second day utter tho operation, by which time the bees will have recognised their queenless ness, in view of which, when several swarms are to be made, it is well to operate on tho best stock about eight days before interfering with the others, as during that time queen cells will have been raised, with which the others, can be supplied and much loss of time will be prevented. Almost every authority urges the advisability of obtaining swarms as early as possible,

August 24, 1894.
