Although I felt confident that my hive possessed some valuable peculiarities, I still found myself unable to remedy many of the casualties to which bee-keeping is liable. I now perceived that no hive could be made to answer my expectations unless it gave me the _complete control of the combs_, so that I might remove any, or all of them at pleasure. The use of the Huber hive had convinced me that with proper precautions, the combs might be removed without _enraging_ the bees, and that these insects were capable of being domesticated or _tamed_, to a most surprising degree. A knowledge of these facts was absolutely necessary to the further progress of my invention, for without it, I should have regarded a hive designed to allow of the removal of the combs, as too dangerous in use, to be of any practical value. At first, I used movable slats or bars placed on rabbets in the front and back of the hive. The bees were induced to build their combs upon these bars, and in carrying them down, to fasten them to the sides of the hive. By severing the attachments to the sides, I was able, at any time, to remove the combs suspended from the bars. There was nothing _new_ in the use of movable _bars_; the invention being probably, at least, a hundred years old; and I had myself used such hives on Bevan's plan, very early in the commencement of my experiments. The chief peculiarity in my hives, as now constructed, was the facility with which these bars could be removed without enraging the bees, and their combination with my new mode of obtaining the surplus honey. With hives of this construction I commenced experimenting on a larger scale than ever, and soon arrived at results which proved to be of the very first importance. I found myself able, if I wished it, to _dispense entirely_ with _natural swarming_, and yet to multiply colonies with much greater _rapidity_ and _certainty_ than by the common methods. I could, in a _short time, strengthen my feeble colonies_, and furnish those which had _lost their Queen_ with the means of _obtaining another_. If I suspected that any thing was the matter with a hive, I could _ascertain_ its _true condition_, by making a thorough examination of every part, and if the _worms had gained a lodgment_, I could quickly _dispossess_ them. In short, I could perform all the operations which will be explained in this treatise, and I now believed that bee-keeping could be made _highly profitable_, and as much a matter of _certainty_, as any other branch of rural economy.