Calling by Queen Bees before Swarming. 25 



Tremois, it was rather late in ripening. Forty-two shoots 

 sprang up and showed fine ears : I allowed the whole family to 

 grow together from one root, without transplanting, protecting 

 them from birds ; and threshed, or rather rubbed, out from this 

 one well-tillered plant 1334 grains of good ripe wheat, every 

 grain of which I have sown in drills. All have come up beauti- 

 fully, and will this year, I doubt not, yield a finer sample than 

 their luxuriant predecessor, which, from the excessive luxuriance 

 of the plant, yielded a much coarser wheat than the grains I 

 received. One of these I have preserved for comparison, and 

 the remaining one was bruised before it reached me. 

 Annat Cottage, Jan. 13. 1838. 



Art. VII. On the Calling of the Qiteen Bees before Swarming. 

 By John Wighton, Gardener at Cossey Hall. 



The remarkable sound, like " Peep, peep," when heard in 

 beehives, is a certain sign of approaching swarming. Some 

 apiarians have thought that this sound proceeded from the rival 

 queens quarrelling. I believe this to be erroneous ; and that the 

 noise is made by the young queens calling before they leave 

 their cells. At first the sound is uttered very faintly, but it in- 

 creases with the growth of the queens. It will be objected that 

 most of the early apiarians believed this sound to proceed from 

 contending queens; and used to observe that a swarm would 

 soon go forth, when the sound came from lower down in the 

 hive. I consider this a mistake ; and that the sound in such 

 cases came from the cell of another queen situated lower in the 

 hive. If the noise were made by rival queens fighting with each 

 other after leaving their cells, it would be heard from various 

 parts of the hive ; but I have never heard the sound but from 

 certain fixed points. 



This season I had, in one of Mr. Nutt's hives, a queen's cell 

 so situated near a glass, that I could observe the larva before 

 the cell was sealed up. From this cell proceeded at first a weak 

 sound of "Peep, peep;" and then a similar sound was heard 

 from other cells, but always from determinate points. The 

 calling of three queens in their cells lasted four days before 

 swarming. About an hour before the swarm came off, I ob- 

 served a queen bee going round and round the cell above- 

 mentioned. The young queen was still within it ; but no sound 

 was heard from it at the time, nor was there any appearance of 

 their fighting. After the swarming, I found two young queens 

 cast out dead. One of these might have left her cell, but the 

 other was too young to have done so, and must have been cast 

 out by the bees. As I had previously heard three separate calls 

 from three fixed points, the sounds I believe to have come from 

 these queens while in their cells. As one of the calls was very 



