It may be advisable to unite the weaker colonies in order to secure the proper strength for the best work. This massing of the workers in strong colonies, so essential to the production of a fancy grade of comb honey, renders necessary extremely careful and skillful management, since the efforts of the beekeeper may still be nullified in either of two ways: (1) The bees may divide their forces by swarming into two or more parts, neither of which would be ready to work in the supers until the season is much advanced or perhaps closed entirely, or (2) being balked in their desire to swarm or from lack of convenient storage space, etc., they may do very poor work even during a good honey flow simply because the conditions of the colony are such that the storing instinct is not dominant. _To bring about the best results in comb honey, the entire working force of each colony must be kept undivided and the means employed in doing so must be such that the storing instinct remains dominant throughout any given honey flow._ Any increase made before or during the flow[3] is made at the expense of the surplus honey unless it be made with brood that would emerge too late for the young bees to be of use during the honey flow (p. 31). In general, however, increase may be made at much less expense by setting aside some of the colonies for that purpose. To keep the forces together and satisfied, with the storing instinct dominant during a good flow, is the most difficult problem with which the producer of comb honey must deal. [3] In localities where the main honey flow is so late that colonies may be divided long enough before the flow so that both colonies may be built up to proper strength in time to take advantage of it, of course increase previous to the flow would be advisable. This condition is rare in comb-honey localities. =Swarming.= All colonies do not behave alike as to swarming. (1) There are certain colonies that go through the season with apparently no thought of swarming. Such colonies do the very best work in the supers, and their number can be increased by skillful management. (2) Other colonies start queen cells preparatory to swarming, but can be persuaded to give it up by such mild measures as destroying the queen cells and perhaps removing a few frames of brood. (3) Certain colonies are determined to swarm and, unless the flow ceases, nothing short of swarming or some radical manipulation will satisfy them. (4) A certain percentage of queens fail during the honey flow and swarming may occur in connection with the supersedure. Such colonies usually do very poor work in comb-honey supers. The beekeeper can do much (1) toward increasing the percentage in the first group and discouraging those of the second--_preventive measures_, and (2) toward making the most of the colonies under the third and fourth groups--_control measures_. =PREVENTIVE MEASURES.=