When swarming is over for the season any princesses remaining in cells are torn out and destroyed as before stated, or else left to the tender mercies of the reigning sovereign. But now and then one of them slips past her assailants, "and then," says Von Berlepsch, "there ensues a regular hunt, which I have several times observed through the hive window. The queen, well knowing the fate that is in store for her, rushes away, and the bees pursue; when seized by the feet or the wings she cries out pitiably, and one queen so moved my compassion that I liberated her, put her in a queen cage, supplied her with workers and comb on a following day, and, as she became successfully fertilised, brought her through the winter." § XII. INCREASE OF BEES. In the section upon "The Queen" we have given (page 10) some particulars as to the rate of breeding with bees. The needful expansion for this rapid development is found in the above process of "swarming," by which they provide themselves with fresh space, and plant new colonies. But the object of the bee-master is to train and educate his bees, and in so doing he avoids much of the risk and trouble which is incurred by allowing the busy folk to follow their own devices. The various methods for this end adopted by apiarians all come under the term of the "depriving" system, and they form part of the great object of humane and economical bee-keeping, which is to save the bees alive instead of slaughtering them as under the old clumsy _régime_. A very natural question is often asked: How is it that, upon the depriving system, where our object is to prevent swarming, the increase of numbers is not so great as upon the old plan? It will be seen that the laying of eggs is performed by the queen only, and that there is but one queen to each hive; so that where swarming is prevented there remains only one hive or stock, as the superfluous princesses are not allowed to come to maturity. If all those princesses were to become monarchs, or mother bees, and to emigrate with a proportionate number of workers, increase would be going on more rapidly; but the old stock would be so impoverished thereby as possibly to yield no surplus honey, whilst the swarms might come off too late for them to collect sufficient store whereon to grow populous enough to withstand the winter. With bees, as with men, "union is strength;" and it is often better to induce them to remain as one family, rather than to part numbers at a late period of the honey-gathering season, without a prospect of supporting themselves, and so perish from cold and hunger during the ordeal of the winter season. This is one of the great secrets of successful bee-keeping. Mr. Langstroth's recommendation is that none "but the most experienced apiarians" should attempt "at the furthest to do more than treble their stocks in one year." Even doubling them, he says, is often too rapid an increase for obtaining spare honey.