158 THE BBB keeper's MANUAL. 



In the Chapter on Artificial Swarming, I shall discuss the 

 effect of too frequent swarming, on the profits of the Apiary. 

 If the bee-keeper desires to have no casts, he can, by the 

 use of my hives, very easily, prevent their issue. As soon 

 as the first swarm is hived, the -parent stock may be opened, 

 and all the queen cells except one removed. How much 

 better this is, than to attempt to return the after-swarms to 

 the parent hive, can only be appreciated by one who has 

 thoroughly tried both plans. If the Apiarian desires the 

 most rapid multiplication of colonies possible, where natural 

 swarming is relied on, full directions will be furnished, in 

 the sequel, for building up all after-swarms, however small, 

 into vigorous stocks. It will be remembered that both the 

 parent stock from which the swarm issues, and all the colo- 

 nies except the first, have a young queen. These queens 

 never leave the hive for impregnation, until after they have 

 been established as the acknowledged heads of independent 

 families. They generally go out for this purpose, the first 

 pleasant day after they are thus acknowledged, early in 

 the afternoon, at which hour the drones are flying in the 

 greatest numbers. On first leaving their hive, they always 

 fly with their heads turned towards it, and enter and depart 

 often several times before they finally soar up into the air. 

 Such precautions on the part of a young queen, are highly 

 necessary that she may not mistake her own hive on her 

 return, and lose her life by attempting to enter that of anoth- 

 er colony. Mistakes of this kind are frequently made when 

 the hives stand near, and closely resemble each other, and 

 are fatal, not only to the queen, but to her whole colony. 

 In the new hive there is no brood at all, and in the old one 

 it is too far advanced towards maturity to answer for raising 

 new queens. Such calamities, in my hive, admit of a very 

 easy remedy, as I shall show in the Chapter on the Loss of 

 the Queen. 



