RULE XIII.
ON TRANSFERRING SWARMS.
This operation should never be effected by compulsion.
FIRST METHOD. Insert drawer No. 1 into the chamber of the hive, to be transferred as early as the first of May. If the bees fill the drawer, they will recede from the lower apartment and winter in the drawer. As early in the spring as the bees carry in bread plentifully on their legs, remove the drawer, which will contain the principal part of the bees, to an empty hive. Now remove the old hive a few feet in front, and place the new one containing the drawer where the old one stood. Now turn the old hive bottom up. If there are any bees left in the old hive, they will soon return and take possession of their new habitation.
SECOND METHOD. Take drawer No. 1, well filled by any hive the same season, insert the same into the chamber of the hive, to be transferred in September, (August would be better.) If the bees need transferring, they will repair to the drawer and make the same their winter quarters. Then proceed in the spring as directed in the first method.
REMARKS.
This management should excite a deep interest in every cultivator, both in a temporal and moral point of view. Temporal, because the lives of all the bees are preserved; moral, because we are accountable to God for all our acts. We are not to be justified in taking the lives of animals or insects, which are but lent blessings, unless some benefit to the owner can be derived from their death, which will outweigh the evils resulting from such a sacrifice. Duty compels me to protest in the strongest terms and feelings, against the inhuman practice of taking the lives of the most industrious and comforting insects to the wants of the human family by fire and brimstone.
When bees have occupied one tenement for several years, the combs become thick and filthy, by being filled up with old bread and cocoons, made by the young bees when transformed from a larva to the perfect fly.