If you wish to devote but little time to your bees, and are not particular as to the time of swarming, and wish to have but _very few swarms, or perhaps none at all_, early in the spring, as soon as bees commence their work, put on the boxes (sides and top,) and give the bees access to them; side boxes first, top boxes later. By this course, but a very small proportion of your stocks will swarm, (if this plan is to be practiced each year, it will be necessary to replace the _old_ queens with _young_ ones every three or four years. If this is not done, queens will die, or become barren from old age, and consequently loss of stocks follows. Keep this point in your mind: _young healthy, prolific queens, are essential to success_,) as they will have ample room in the boxes for their labor. Occasionally a hive treated in this way will swarm, and, if you wish to have no increase of stocks whatever, if a swarm comes out, hive it in a light box, and _as soon as this is done_, go to the hive which they came from and smoke lightly; if the bees are cross, lift out the comb frames from the brood section with the bees adhering; examine each and every comb _carefully_ for queen cells, _and cut off all but one_. Success here depends on _care and thoroughness_, for if you leave more than one cell, your bees may swarm out again in a day or two. After this is done, spread a sheet on the ground; set a light box, like the one in which you have the bees, near one side; raise the edge towards where you will shake the bees one inch or a little more, to give the bees a chance to enter the box. Shake the bees from the hive, by a quick, jerking motion, upon the sheet, the most of them some two or three feet from the box. With a large spoon or ladle, put a few up near the box, so they will enter, and disturb the others gently with a quill or light brush. When they commence to enter the box, they will set up a loud and continual humming, or call, and the bees on the sheet, if lightly disturbed with the quill or brush, will spread out, and march towards the hive, while those on the wing will alight, and join them in the march. Now look _closely_ for the queen, and capture her. If she is not found before the bees get into the box, shake them out again, and go through the same process, till you find her. As soon as you have secured the queen, the bees, in a few minutes, finding themselves destitute of a queen, and not having the means of raising another to take her place, will rise on the wing, and return to the old stock from which they came, and will not come out again, but will work in the boxes throughout the season. I will treat of this subject of swarming no further in this chapter. The merits of the Controllable Hive and New System of Bee Management, will be fully shown further on in this work, and the most explicit instructions given for rearing bees with profit. [Illustration] CHAPTER III.