SWARMING AND HIVING. ' 123 



serting its abode the second day after being hived, settled 

 upon a tree. On examining the abandoned hive, five 

 young queens were found lying dead on its bottom- 

 board. The swarm was returned, and, the next morning, 

 two more dead queens were found. As the colony after- 

 wards prospered, eight queens, at least, must have left the 

 parent-stock in a single swarm ! 



Young queens, whose ovaries are not burdened with 

 eggs, are much quicker on the wing than- old ones, and 

 frequently fly much farther from the parent-stock before 

 they alight. After the departure of the second swarm, 

 the oldest remaining queen leaves her cell ; and if another 

 swarm is to come forth, piping will still be heard ; and so 

 before the issue of each swarm after the first. It will 

 sometimes be heard for a short time after the issue of the 

 second swarm, even when the bees do not intend to swarm 

 again. The third swarm usually leaves the hive on the 

 second or third day after the second swarm, and the 

 others, at intervals of about a day. I once had five 

 swarms from one stock, in less than two weeks. In warm 

 latitudes, more than twice this number of swarms have 

 been known to issue, in one season, from a single stock. 



In after-swarming, the queen sometimes re-enters the 

 hive, after having appeared on the alighting-board. If 

 she does this once, she will be apt to do it repeatedly, and 

 the swarm, in each instance, will return to the mother- 

 hive. 



In the Apiary of a friend in Matamoras, when his first 

 swarm issued, there was no tree for it to alight on. The 

 wind was so strong, that the bees did not leave the vicin- 

 ity of their hives, but began to settle on a hive near their 

 own. Although the queen was secured, with a portion of 

 her colony, a large part of the swarm entered the adjoin- 

 ing stocks. When these stocks swarmed, although a tree 



