The Cycle of the Year 61 



ment within the brood nest during brood-rearing, the de- 

 velopmental stages are practically uniform in length of time. 

 This is a great benefit to the beekeeper, especially in timing 

 swarming and similar phenomena where queen cells are 

 concerned. It has been found that if brood is removed and 

 kept at a temperature lower than is usual in the brood-cham- 

 ber, development continues but, as with other insects, it is 

 retarded. 



One other point regarding the hive temperature is impor- 

 tant. The temperature is not uniform throughout the hive 

 but may vary over many degrees in cold weather. This will 

 be explained in greater detail under a discussion of bees 

 during winter. In any weather, however, the efforts of the 

 bees in heat generation are confined to the brood nest or, in 

 ;the absence of brood, to the cluster, except when wax is 

 being secreted, when a high temperature is also maintained 

 at the point of building. Away from the centers of activity, 

 however, the temperature is not raised except by chance 

 muscular movements or by convection currents, but may be 

 cooled if it is too hot. This perhaps explains the seemingly 

 unreconcilable records of hive temperatures during the 

 summer. 



SWARMING 



Continued and increased breeding, previously described 

 as occurring in early summer, would result in enormous 

 colonies if the queen were able to lay eggs with sufficient 

 rapidity to meet the demands of such a case. It would not, 

 however, result in any increase in the number of colonies. 

 Obviously, it frequently 'happens that an entire colony of 

 bees is destroyed, in Nature as well as in the hands of the 

 beekeeper, and the very existence of the species depends on 

 another method of reproduction. The colony life of the bee 

 is so completely developed that it is permissible to think of 

 the individuals as merely " winged organs of the colony," as 

 Maeterlinck has expressed it. We now come to the breed- 

 ing of colonies or swarming. This process of reproduc- 



