NATURAL SWARMING. 183 



The hive which has sent forth a colony usually 

 contains large quantities of brood and eggs, and 

 some cells in which princesses are more or less 

 developed, so that queens would be provided in 

 proportional succession. If the stock has been so 

 weakened that it is not intended, by the workers 

 remaining, that another colony should issue during 

 the season, the first queen who emerges is allowed 

 to destroy all her royal sisters remaining in the cells, 

 and she, at once, avails herself of the opportunity of 

 so doing. If, on the other hand, the amount of the 

 on-coming brood is very large, and it is manifest that 

 again the hive will become too crowded, the queen is 

 restrained from her murderous propensities. She 

 resents this interference by uttering the sharp cries of 

 " peep-peep," previously mentioned, and is answered 

 in similar tones by her still imprisoned rival sisters. 

 This is a sure sign of the approaching emergence of 

 a second colony. Within two or three days of the 

 piping being heard, the expected event takes place, 

 though occasionally it may be delayed, by cloudy or 

 wet or cold weather, till the fifth day. Such a second 

 exodus is called a "cast." Sometimes in the excite- 

 ment of "casting" several young queens, who have 

 been under guard, will escape ; and as many as five 

 have been known thus to issue with a second swarm : 

 indeed, Langstroth mentions one instance of eight 

 queens having thus left the parent stock at one time. 

 Of course, when such an event occurs, if all are 

 hived with the general cluster, they will fight till 

 one only is left to enjoy supremacy in the com- 

 munity. If the settling of the swarm takes place in 

 two or three places, it is pretty sure that more than 



