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Rh sure that our queen had made no mésalliance we were entirely content.

Our lack of success in preventing swarming when trying to produce comb-honey was a source of great chagrin to us until we read that so eminent a bee-keeper as Mr. Hutchinson declared that "there is no way of preventing first swarms profitable to the comb-honey producer," and then our feelings were salved. The following are in brief a few of the more successful ways practised to prevent increase:

By clipping the queen's wings.—Almost all bee-keepers practise this now, whatever their method of preventing increase or securing it. A queen with clipped wings is necessarily a "stay-at-home body," and the swarm will not leave without her. However, when depending upon this method it is very important to guard against the hatching of new queens, and this can only be done by closely scrutinising the brood-comb to discover and destroy the queen cells. The brood-frames should be examined in each hive about once a week during the months of June and July, if this method is to succeed. Many a time have we sat smilingly by and watched a swarm come out of the hive with great pomp and circumstance, only to sneak back when it was discovered that her majesty was unfit for travel.

By the use of a queen-trap.—This is a device used by some instead of clipping the wings of the queen. It is a box of perforated zinc placed over the entrance of the hive, the slots in it large enough to allow the workers to pass in and out, and small enough to hold