WHY DO BEES SWARM ? 79 



tion to these there will be a large number of nurse bees, young 

 downy ones, eagerly engaged in supplying the infantile wants of 

 the younger brood. These are among the first internal indications 

 of swarming. If the bees be a well established colony, and the 

 queen is about completing her first year, there will be indications 

 of the approach of drone laying. In the early part of her life 

 a fecundated queen never lays what a.re termed drone eggs. When 

 about entering the second year of her existence her drone-laying 

 powers are first developed. The maturing of drones within the 

 •cells is the second stage in the order towards swarming. There 

 are no drones wintered with the bees. Of course, it can be done 

 artifically, and perhaps under required conditions it is done when 

 bees are in a state of nature. 



As spring advances and bee food becomes more plentiful, the 

 bees seem to realise the conditions necessary for swarming. As 

 queens do not leave the hive, after their return from their marital 

 flight, till they go forth with the first spring swarms, the swarm- 

 ing conditions must be arrived at by the queen observing the abun- 

 dance of the food supplies brought in by the bees, and the genial 

 warmth of spring. In the first place these aiixiliaries conduce to 

 the rapid increase in worker brood, followed, as before stated, 

 by drone production. Drones as their strength and power of 

 flight increase do not remain in the hive like young workers, but 

 are eager to get on the wing. During the warmest parts of spring 

 days their deep hum can be heard mid-air, and if we place our- 

 selves near the hives we shall see them busy at the entrance 

 thereto. This will be a sure indication that queen cells are in 

 progress and young queens are developing. When looking through 

 the hives, these cells are easily distinguishable from the worker 

 or drone cells both by their form and their positions. They are 

 constructed, as a rule, on the edges of the combs. There is no 

 rule as to the number; neither do the number of cells give any 

 indication of the number of swarms that will be cast off during 

 the season from any particular colony. If there are a dozen or 

 more queen cells containing maturing queens, it is seldom that two 

 or more of these are of the same age, that is, it is not probable that 

 any two of them will emerge from the cell at one and the same 

 time, for reasons to be explained further on. The perfecting of 

 these developing queens is another advancing stage in the swarm- 

 ing symptoms. The aversion that queen bees have llie one to the 

 other is well known, and also the jealous guard placed over the 



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