pecified. I doubt not that many bee-keepers, on
reading this mode of creating colonies, are ready to object that it not
only requires more skill, but more time and labor, than to allow them to
swarm, and then to hive them in the old-fashioned way.

As practiced with ordinary hives, it is undoubtedly liable to this
serious objection, and I would easily with my basket hiver, undertake to
hive four natural swarms, in the time that it would require to create
one forced swarm; to say nothing of the care which must be bestowed upon
the artificial swarms, with their parent stocks, after the driving
process has been completed. For this reason, I do not advise the
bee-keeper to force his swarms from the common hives, until he has first
ascertained that they are not likely to swarm in tolerably good season,
of their own accord, unless he is afraid that they will come out during
his absence, and decamp to the woods.

By the aid of my hives, this process may be most expeditiously
performed. An empty hive, with its frames furnished with guide combs,
must be in readiness. The cover of the full hive should be removed, and
the bees gently sprinkled with sugar-water from a watering pot that
discharges a fine stream. In about two minutes, the frames may be taken
out, and the bees, by a quick motion, shaken on a sheet directly in
front of their hive. As fast as a comb is deprived of its bees, it
should be set in a proper position in the new hive, and an empty frame
put in its place. Two or three of the combs containing brood, eggs, &c.,
should be left in the old hive, as well to give them greater
encouragement, as to prevent them from being dissatisfied if their queen
should, by any possibility, be taken from them. In removing the frames
with the bees, I always look for the queen, and if I see her, as I
generally do, I return to the hive the frame which contains her, without
shaking off the bees. In that case, I put several of the necessary combs
into the new hive, with all the bees upon them.

In dislodging the bees upon the sheet, I do not shake them all off from
the frames; but leave about one quarter of them on, and put them with
the combs into the new hive. I never knew the queen to be left on a
frame after it was shaken so that the larger portion of the bees would
fall off. As soon as the operation is completed, and the necessary
number of bees have been transferred with their comb to the new hive, it
should be managed according t