The prepared hive is now heavily stacked with bees that are queenless. All queen cells are destroyed on the combs in the old hive if cells have been castted, and the comb containing the queen is restored to its place. The old colony is now left to hatch out the sealed brood, and rear brood to keep up the queenless colony. The bees in the prepared hive show a little confusion at the start on missing the combs of brood and the queen, but being on the old stand and having the surplus cases present they start queen cells, and having no brood to feed and nurse, they build combs in the surplus cases and gather honey with the greatest rapidity, on the tenth day after the queenless colony was formed, the queen cells are removed and substituted with a piece of comb containing just hatched larvae. Now another supply of bees are shaken from the combs, taken from the old colony in front of the queenless hive, which recruits their failing strength and the work of storing surplus goes rapidly on. At the end of ten days more the queen cells are again removed and the old colony is united with the queenless one and the honey harvest is finished up by the united colony and all danger of swarming is past for the season. If a swarm gets out before the operation is commenced the queen is returned to the old colony after destroying the queen cells. The swarm is lived in the prepared hive and the management is precisely the same as above described. Such was my queenless system. After I learned to use perforated zinc queen excluders, I found it less labor and the results equally good, to hive the swarms with the queens into hives prepared as above, confining the queen to the contracted brood chamber by means of the zinc excluders. The queen cells are de-troyed in the old hive and the bees in the old hive are united with the swarm as soon as the danger of swarming is over. In either case, toward the close of the honey harvest, the contracted brood nest is enlarged to full size by putting the combs from the old hive in the place of the division broods, so as to put the * [14]**THE BEE-KEEPERS' MAGAZINE.**
* [15]**colony in normal condition for fall and winter.**
* [16]**All such manipulations require labor and attention, but without this we can never accomplish our purposes. If there is anything more vexatious to the wide-awake apiarist than to see his best colonies fritter away the best of the honey harvest under the swarm craze, I could not imagine what it could be. If we want increase we can get it by taking just one prime swarm from each colony that chooses to cast a swarm and prevent after swarms by the depletion plan of moving the parent colony to a new location in the apiary. But if we don't want increase we must use radical means as above described.** _Christiantsburg, Ay._
* [17]**For the Bee-Keepers' Magazine.**
* [18]**Reply to Comments on Legislation.**
* [19]**DR. C. C. MILLER.**
* [20]**Like nearly all others, Mr. William Hall (B. K. M., p. 326) and yourself (B. K. M, p. 323) get somewhat astray in attempting to define my position as to legislation. Good friends, without taking up much room, just allow me to say that I, no more than you, desire anything that shall be unfair to the poorest man in the land, whether he may have one colony or a thousand, nor that shall hinder the man who wants to keep a single colony of bees for the mere pleasure of it, any more than he is hindered from farming a single rod of land for the mere pleasure of it. The fact is that whilst I have felt the need of something, without having very definite ideas as to details, all sorts of definite and specific plans have been attributed to me, of some of which I never dreamed. Now, I don't want anything that shall not be entirely fair and for the best good of all. Isn't that fair? I want bee-keeping to have the same chance that farming has. Isn't that fair? I have no cut-and-dried plan by which the thing might be accomplished in all its details. The time hasn't come for that. What good is there in it, so long as the mass of bee-keepers insist that there is no need for anything to be done ; that all is well just as it is? But the world does move slowly, and I welcome to the ranks of those who have taken a step in advance, Brother Hall and yourself, Mr. Editor. For, unlike others, you see the need of _something_ to be done, and are casting about for the best method of accomplishing it. Now, I am not particularly anxious that there shall be any legislation whatever, _if_ some plan can be devised whereby the bee-keeper can have the same security, whether with one hive or a hundred, as the farmer now possesses. Mr. Hall has made a step in the right direction by suggesting _a plan_. His plan, I think, is meant to be fair and equitable. I wish he had followed it out a little more in detail, so we could have seen it in full working order. I suspect no plan can be adopted without accompanying difficulties, and it is only by looking them fully in the face and freely talking over everything that we may arrive at what is best. I will mention just one difficulty that presents itself to my mind in Mr. Hall's plan. Suppose he attempts to start a joint stock company in his locality, and all the land-owners within a certain radius join the company, except one man who owns an acre of land right in the center of the locality, and he stands out and allows an apiary to be planted on his acre sufficient to harvest all the nectar. Of what value would the stock be, and what could be done?**
* [21]**Precisely the same objection holds against the plan you suggest, Mr. Editor. One stubborn man could balk the whole proceedings. Suppose, however, that you succeeded in satisfactorily buying up all the territory for a term of years, and within six months the Sheriff sells out an acre of ground to a man who is not in the compact. He is sharp enough to see that for be-keeping purposes his one acre is just exactly as valuable as all the territory you control. What can be done in that case? But I'm glad others are beginning to study what can be done. With two editors urging the _representative_ organization of bee-keepers, I have strong hopes that something use