532 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



As soon as tlie hive becomes densely populated, if the honey pasturage is 

 bountiful in its supplies, the workers rear a young queen or queens, at the ma- 

 turity of the first of ■which the old queen leaves the hive, followed by a portion 

 of the Avorkers of all ages above two weeks, and "swarms;" but "swarming," 

 (not desertion of the hives,) seldom if ever takes place except under the following 

 conditions : A populous colony ; a mature young queen, almost if not quite 

 ready to emerge from her cell ; a bountiful supply of honey pasturage, and 

 clear weather. 



As the workers frequently commence the rearing of a dozen or more queens 

 when they prepare for swarming, which queens mature at different periods, 

 or on different days, they are often led to swarm to excess, by which the old 

 stock, as well as the later swarms, are rendered worthless. When the first or 

 old queen takes out the first swarm, she leaves behind her a young queen, 

 which, under the most favorable circumstances, seldom commences to lay until 

 at least the eighth day after the old one has left. Meantime a large number of 

 young bees and another queen may be hatched, and before the first-hatched 

 queen has laid any eggs, she may carry off the second swarm, and so also the 

 thu'd, and sometimes, though rarely in this section of the country, a fourth, by 

 which time (no eggs having been laid in the interim) all the brood is hatched, 

 and nearly all has been "swarmed out," the last one, or, perhaps, the last two 

 swarms, being so small, and so late as to be unable to build comb and lay up 

 sufficient stores for their winter support, and the parent hive with an inadequate 

 number of bees to either protect its combs from moth or produce a sufficient 

 stock of bees or honey for their sustenance the following winter. This presents 

 one extreme. The opposite is where (although the colony is populous) no 

 swarming takes place, and the bees seem to hang listlessly around a hive filled 

 with honey. This may, and often does, occur in consequence of an excess of 

 honey in the hive in the spiing, which prevents the rearing of large numbers 

 of bees at one brood. They gradually, perhaps, become populous, and, during 

 the same time, by filling the cells with honey as soon as made vacant by the hatch- 

 ing of the young bees, they arrive at a stage in which there is very little room for 

 breeding or further increasing their number, and having no room lu the hive iu 

 which to store any surplus honey, listlessly do nothing. This condition is also 

 sometimes produced in consequence of inclement weather setting in just at the 

 time they are about ready to swarm, and continuing until all the young queens 

 have been destroyed, and a very large number of workers hatched, which, be- 

 fore young queens can again be reared, on the return of fair weather, fill the 

 brood cells, or most of them, with honey as fast as the young bees in them 

 emerge, and thus bring about that " opulent " condition which disinclines them 

 to swarming, as in this condition but few more bees can be bred that season. 

 Such colonies are very apt to enter the winter with a greatly diminished popu- 

 lation of old bees, many of which must die before spring, besides those chilled 

 to death between these thick, cold walls of honey. 



Such stocks are likely to prove the least productive in the apiary, so long 

 as burdened with the excess of honey, and afterwards, until they have had 

 time and season to recover. 



When the combs in such colonies are movable, of course the seasonable ex- 

 change of a few empty frames or combs for those they have filled with honey 

 will at once enable them to resume breeding, and by the timely provision to 

 populous colonies of suitable surplus honey receptacles, (each having a small 

 piece or pieces of new comb attached by means of melted wax, or otherwise, to 

 the underside of its top, as an inducement to commence,) they will store surplus 

 honey in these receptacles, thereby leaving those in the brood chamber at the 

 disposition of the queen for breeding purposes. 



The difficulty of inducing them to work in these surplus honey receptacles 

 ia greatly obviated by placing them over the brood chamber and having no 



