60 SWARMIXG AXD HmNG. 



about it, if left entirely to themselves,) from which 

 is about sixteen days the queen will hatch, unless 

 the bees should change their intentions, and decide 

 not to swarm, and destroy all the queen cells. Re- 

 member, they are having it all their own way. 

 When these cells ai'e sealed over and finished is the 

 time (if everything is favorable) when the first 

 swarm leaves, led off" by the old queen. Some of 

 the most reliable works on bees have taught that 

 the queen cells must be half Jinished before the 

 queen will deposit the egg that is to produce the 

 queen; but this I find by close observation, is a 

 mistake ; for if you take the queen away from a 

 stock, with no queen cells in any stage of forma- 

 tion in the hive, the bees will rear a queen from a 

 worker egg, deposited in an« ordinary worker cell. 

 And who shall say they do not do this when the 

 queen is present.? I am satisfied they do. 



Thus we see in natural swarming, with the bees 

 left to themselves, the old queen leaves with the 

 first swarm at about the time the queen cells are 

 sealed over and finished, which is about eight days 

 before the young queens hatch. 



When the young queens hatch, after-swarms (as 

 second and third issues, or all after the first,) will 

 issue. Second swarms may be expected in about 

 eight days after the first. This time w^ill somewhat 

 vary, as the hatching of the queen sometimes de- 

 pends on the weather, the number of bees left in the 

 old stock, etc. ; a low temperature retards the hatch- 

 ing, while a high temperature forwards it. 



At evening of about the eighth or tenth da}- after 



