decrease, until by the time that the progeny of the young queen begins to emerge from their cells, the number of bees in the new hive will be so small, that it would be of no value, even if its combs were of the best construction. Every observing bee-keeper must have noticed how rapidly even a powerful swarm diminishes in number, for the first three weeks after it has been hived. In many cases, before the young begin to hatch, it does not contain one half its original number; so very great is the mortality of bees during the height of the working season. I have most thoroughly tested, in the only way in which it can be practiced in the ordinary hives, this last plan of artificial swarming, and do not hesitate to say that it does not possess the very slightest practical value; and as this is the method which Apiarians have usually tried, it is not strange that they have almost unanimously pronounced Artificial swarming to be utterly worthless. The experience of Dzierzon on this point has been the same with my own. Another method of artificial swarming has been zealously advocated, which, if it could only be made to answer, would be, of all conceivable plans the most effectual, and as it would require the smallest amount of labor, experience, or skill, would be everywhere practiced. A number of hives must be put in connection with each other, so as to communicate by holes which allow the bees to travel from any one apartment to the others. The bees, on this plan, are to _colonize themselves_, and in time, a single swarm will, of its own accord, multiply so as to form a large number of independent families, each one possessing its own queen, and all living in perfect harmony.