NATURAL SWARMIN&. 35 



while ajl of the swarms became strong colonies ; but tins was quite 

 exceptional, and was after all secured by the kind of attention which bees 

 do not always get. Casts are less numerous generally than swarms, but 

 as every bee they contain is young, queen included, with its life of work 

 before it, they are not to be despised, but it is usually bad economy where 

 increase in stock is not required, to allow casting at all. With frame hives 

 it may be prevented by examining the combs five or six days after swarming, 

 and destroying all queen cells but one. If it be done earlier than this, 

 new queen cells may be started because eggs or grubs young enough for 

 conversion into queens would still remain in the hive. With skeps the 

 oast must issue, be deprived of its queen, and then returned. Swarms, 

 accompanied as they are by the old queen, whose maturity brings discretion, 

 seldom come off except in clear fine weather, and then rarely before nine or 

 after three o'clock ; but after swarms, going with giddy lasses, often rise 

 with the elements not quite propitious, and at widely different times of 

 the day, while their flight is likely to be much more extensive than that of 

 first swarms. The apiary therefore requires careful watching, while they 

 aje likely to issue, but since the last queen must be hatched by the 

 sixteenth day after her mother left the stock, all after swarms must be out 

 by the eighteenth day. 



The queen accompanying a cast has to fly to meet the drone (see 

 Chapter I.), and here lies a source of uncertainly, for should any accident 

 befall her, the colony must inevitably perish, since they are destitute of 

 eggs, without which they are unable to replace her. Such a calamity 

 occurring, the beemaster should, if possible, at once furnish to them a 

 new queen, or a ripe queen cell, the methods of introducing which will 

 presently be explained ; but, lacking these, a comb from another hive con- 

 taining both eggs and brood wUl enable them to supply her pla,ce, but 

 not until much mischief has been done from the building of 

 drone comb, as shown more fully in Chapter Til. But a cast, with its 

 virgin queen, who must mate with a drone already in existence, does not 

 normally colonize till a succeeding season ; so that for them male bees 

 are needless. How suitable then is their habit under these conditions, 

 of filling their hives with combs, amongst which but very few drone cells 

 appear. 



r. 2 



