THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



125 



proceed to rear a queen. The hive is, of course, 

 to be replaced on its former stand; and the 

 ekes arc not to be removed until the young 

 queen has become fertile. If, in addition to the 

 eggs and larvte, a scaled queen cell can be given, 

 much valuable time will be gained, if the em- 

 bryo queen be not destroyed. 



Swarm Nomenclature. 



Fertility of the Queen Bee. 



r>Y THE UARON OP BEKLKt»SCH. 



The first swarm that issues from a stock of 

 bees in the spring is called the "p?-i??ie" swarm, 

 and is usually the strongest and best which such a 

 stock may be expected to produce that season. 



The second swarm, or first afterswarm, is 

 termed a " casi!," and usually issues from ten to 

 fourteen days after the prime swarm. It is 

 commonlj^ weaker than the prime swarm — that 

 is, composed of fewer bees; and coming later in 

 the season, does not always secure sufli- 

 cient stores to pass the winter safely. It has 

 the advantage, however, of possessing a j'oung 

 queen. 



Should a third swarm issue from the same 

 stock, it is termed a "foZ;," and a fourth swarm 

 is called a "_/f^??/." These are rare, 1)ut when 

 they make Iheir appearance, follow the second 

 swarm, after an interval of only one or two 

 days. 



A swarm from a swarm is called a " maiden'^'' 

 swarm, and is accompanied by the same c[ueen 

 which issued with the parent stock when it 

 swarmed. 



In ordinary honey districts, good bee-keepers 

 generally strive to prevent the production of 

 any afterswarm bj^ adding.?!;p<3?'s to their hives. 

 But as this is not always efi'ectual, they catch 

 and destroy the queen of the young swarm, 

 and let the bees return to the parent stock. 



Feeding. 



A little food in the spring stimulates the 

 queen to lay more abundantly, for bees are 

 provident, and do not rear the young so rapidly 

 Avhen the supplies are short. In this particular 

 the intelligence of the bees is very striking; 

 they have needed no Maltlius to teach them that 

 the means of subsistence must regulate the in- 

 crease of a prosperous population. Judgment 

 has, however, to be exercised by the apiarian 

 in giving food, for it is quite possible to do 

 miscldef by overfeeding. The bees, when over- 

 fed, will till so many of the combs with honey 

 that the queen in the early spring cannot find 

 cmptj'- cells in which to deposit her eggs, and 

 by this means the progress of the colony is much 

 retarded, a result that should be guarded 

 against. 



Aky sudden or clumsy movement which jars 

 the combs or frames will excite the bees, and if 

 but one be crushed, the odor of their slaughtered 

 comrade rouses them to a pitch of exaiiperation. 

 Their powers of smell are very accute. The 

 best time for most operations is in the middle 

 of a fine day. 



[The substance of a portion of the following 

 article appeared originally in the series of ela- 

 borate essays in demonstration of the truth of 

 the Dzierzon theory, a translation of which was 

 published in the first volume of the American 

 Bee Jourkal. It was subsequently re-written 

 by him and enlarged, and forms the tenth 

 chapter of his comprehensive work on '■'■the 

 Bee and Bee-culture,'''' from which we translate 

 anew.] 



That the fertility of a queen bee varies accord- 

 ing to season, circumstances, and personal 

 capacity, can hardly have escaped the notice 

 of any careful observer, and we have therefore 

 only to inquire — first, what may be the extent 

 of a queen's productiveness in any case — that 

 is, how many eggs may she be able to lay in a 

 given time, as, for example, in a day ? Second, 

 -^rhat produces a diminution of her fertility ? 

 And, third, what causes it to cease ? 



This inquiry, moreover, is to be made in 

 view of the well-ascertained fact that a healthy 

 queen has it in her power to lay many eggs, or 

 a few only, or, finally, none. To-day, for in- 

 stance, a queen in a feeble colony may lay only 

 twenty or thirty eggs; but being transferred to 

 a populous hive, she may in a few days lay two 

 thousand eggs daily, and again, in autumn, 

 none wliatever. This augmentation, diminution, 

 and ultimate cessation can only be dependant 

 on the greater or smaller quantity of food which 

 the queen takes. But as in every department 

 of the commonwealth of bees, as I have else- 

 where stated, the workers are the guides and 

 controllers, they no doubt here also," under the 

 impulse of their own instinct, feed the queen 

 liberally when they would have much brood, 

 modera'tely when thay would have little, and 

 so sparingly when they would have none, that, 

 though she receives enough to sustain life in 

 health and vigor, there is no surplus available 

 for the production of eggs. 



How many eggs can a queen lay ? 



As regards the productiveness of a queen, it 

 is only necessary to turn over a hive at different 

 seasons of the year and inspect the combs, to 

 see that in May and June, if the weather be fine 

 and warm, and pasturage not tooabimdant, the 

 productiveness of the queen is most fully 

 developed, and the number of eggs laid daily 

 very large. But how many eggs can a healthy 

 fertile queen, under the most favorable circum- 

 stances, lay in one day '? Dzierzon says three 

 thousand, as he has found sixty thousand cells 

 supplied with brood in a highly i^opulous hive, 

 "when circumstances were peculiarly favor- 

 able." 



I have made various experiments in relation 

 to this matter, four of which I will here advert 

 to. 



1. In the year 184G, the queen of an extra- 

 ordinarily strong swarm, which I hived when 

 the rape-fields were in blossom, laid 4,831 eggs 



