[Footnote 17: Bees are apt to take the interference more kindly if the stock be moved a little distance from its accustomed stand; in such case, place an empty hive in its place, to amuse returning bees. These can be shaken out when the hive it is desired they should inhabit is restored. If the hive be kept in a closed bee-house, the entrance should be shut down until the hive is replaced, when the clustered bees may be at once admitted.] [Footnote 18: Italian queens are more easily detected, being of a brighter colour and, generally, larger than English queens.] This operation we performed, exactly as described above, with one of our improved cottage-hives, one afternoon at the latter end of May, 1862. Whilst inspecting our bees, we caught sight of the queen on the comb in one of the bell-glasses. This was a chance not to be missed, and we immediately resolved to form an artificial swarm, for the hive was very full of bees. Besides, being obliged to be away from the apiary most of the week, we were glad of the opportunity of so easily establishing a colony without the uncertainty and trouble of hiving a natural swarm. In the first place, we slid a tin under the bell-glass, and removing the stock-hive from underneath, we took it a few feet away; then we placed an empty improved cottage-hive where the old stock had stood, and put the glass of comb containing the queen and a few bees over one of the holes in the crown of this new empty hive. The bees that were left abroad belonging to the old stock returned as usual to their old entrance as they supposed; soon a sufficient number formed a large cluster in the hive and began comb-building, the queen remaining in the glass until the cells below were sufficiently numerous for her to deposit her eggs in them. The division answered exceedingly well; both hives prospered: the old hive either had some princesses coming forward to supply the loss of the queen, or the bees used a power that they possess of raising a queen from worker-brood in the manner we have previously described.[19] [Footnote 19: See Section I, page 9.] The foregoing account illustrates the successful formation of an artificial swarm; but, with a cottage-hive, gaining possession of the queen is quite a matter of chance. With a movable frame-hive she can at any suitable time be found.