A fourth method is to take two combs from each of several strong stocks, brushing off all bees with a feather or goose-wing. Then placing the hive thus filled with comb and brood, on the stand of a strong stock, the returning bees will take to the home thus presented to them, and will speedily raise a queen for themselves from one of the many eggs contained in the brood cells. The displaced hive must, as in previous instances, be removed a few yards from its old position. The reason for filling the abode of the new community with frames of worker-brood, is to prevent the bees from building drone-comb, and raising males only, as they are apt to do when they have to manufacture a queen, at least till she is not only hatched but begins to lay eggs. There are three or four important precautions which are to be remembered when making artificial swarms. Firstly--swarming should not be artificially attempted till drones are tolerably numerous, unless a fertile queen is to be given to the new colony Secondly--honey should be abundant when the swarm is made, unless a good deal is stored in the combs removed. If syrup, however, be supplied, all danger from scanty sources outside will be removed. Thirdly--swarms should be taken only from the strongest stocks, otherwise both old and new communities will be, perhaps irretrievably, ruined. Fourthly--it is an immense advantage to introduce a queen into the hive that has been deprived of its mother-bee; and with suitable precautions, especially that of caging the supplied sovereign for thirty-six hours in a receptacle made for the purpose, there is usually little difficulty in getting the substitute amicably received by the mourning workers. This plan not only prevents the loss of two or three weeks of very valuable time in the rearing and fertilising of a queen, but obviates the danger of the young queen, when raised, perishing on her wedding-flight, through being snapped up by a bird, or mistaking the entrance of her hive on her return. Various modifications of the above plans may be found in Langstroth, but enough has been said to indicate the ordinary and simplest modes of procedure. CHAPTER XX. QUEEN REARING. Protection of Queen-cells--Nucleus Hives--Various Methods of Queen Rearing--American Plan--Introduction of Stranger Queens--Difficulties.