52

50 CHAPMAN'S HANDY-BOOK.

cumstances, make the best of it, and always seem to me
to be singing all day long, that song which I wish were
better known, or rather more generally acted upon, by
us men creatures - "Try, try, try again." More than
once I have allowed them to make the trial. I have fed
them for a day or two with the refuse combs, which they
thankfully accepted, in lieu of the thirty pounds or so
which I took from them ;the feeding was necessary to
enable them to get their new combs built with as little
delay as possible. The season proved favourable for
honey gathering, though this experiment was made in
the beginning of winter; in fact, the trial succeeded,
and this family of persevering bees are now one of my
best stocks.
But the object of the bee master who has a fully stocked
apiary, should be not only to take a large quantity of honey
by this process, but also to reduce his stock to the number
which he wishes to swarm the following spring. So at
sunset he should unite the bees of this deprived hive to its
next neighbour in the mode last described. The doubled
hive should be moved midway between the places lately
occupied by the two. If three hives are united, do not dis-
place the middle one, but take away altogether those which
you have emptied. The bees will then have no difficulty
in finding their new home, especially if, for a day or two
after, you prop up the front of this hive with some little
wooden wedges, so as to make the doorway much handier.
But the greatest confusion and loss will be occasioned by
the attempt to join bees from different parts of the apiary
- for, says Jonas de Gelien, of Edinburgh, in the "Bee
Preserver," bees that have not swarmed voluntarily return
to the place they have been accustomed to, even after
having been shut up for months. The same thing happens
if you unite swarms distant from each other. Next day,
or the day after, you would have the mortification to see
the bees return by hundreds to their old residence, flutter
about for a length of time, and lose their lives, either by
falling down from fatigue, or throwing themselves into
the neighbouring hives, where they are put to death. Not
having left their new dwelling with the same precaution
that a swarm uses to reconnoitre the one it has chosen, or