e-bread, when pollen is scarce. As I am writing this chapter, (March
29, 1853,) my bees are zealously engaged in taking the flour from some
old combs in front of their hives, and they can be seen most beautifully
moulding the little pellets on their thighs. By my movable combs, I can
give them the flour at once in their hives, as it can easily be rubbed
into an empty comb. The importance of Dzierzon's discovers of a
substitute for pollen, can hardly be over-estimated. If he had done
nothing more for the cause of Apiarian science, no true-hearted
bee-keeper would ever allow his name to be forgotten.

In the Chapter on Feeding, I shall give more specific directions as to
the way in which the cultivator must feed his bees, when he aims at
increasing, as rapidly as possible, the number of his stocks. Unless
this work is done with great judgment, he will find often that the more
he feeds, the less bees he has in his hives, the cells being all
occupied with honey instead of brood. Such is the passion of bees for
storing away honey, that large supplies of it will always most seriously
interfere with breeding, unless the bees are sufficiently numerous to
build new comb in which the queen can find room for her eggs.

I have no doubt that some who have but little experience in the
management of bees, are ready to imagine that they could easily strike
out a simpler and better way of increasing the number of colonies. For
instance: let a full hive have half its comb and bees put into an empty
hive, and the work of doubling, is without further trouble, effectually
accomplished. But what will the queenless hive do, under such
circumstances? Why, build of course, queen cells, and rear another. But
what kind of comb will they fill their hives with, before the young
queen begins to breed? Of that, perhaps, you had never thought. Let me
now lay down the only safe rule for all who engage in the multiplication
of artificial swarms. Never, under _any_ circumstances, take so much
comb and brood from your stock hives, as seriously to reduce their
numbers. This should be to the Apiarian, as "the law of the Medes and
Persians, which altereth not."

Suppose that I divide a populous stock, about swarming season, into four
or five colonies; the strong probability is, that not one of them, if
left to themselves, will be strong enough to survive the Winter. If fed
in the ordinary way, and yet not supplied with combs and bees, their
ruin will often