154 MORE ABOUT SWASMS. 



should always be prevented if possible, because too 

 weakening to the parent stock. If honey is required, 

 even a second swarm must not be allowed. A great 

 harvest of honey can only be had when the bees do 

 not swarm at all. 



With skeps the bee-keeper is to a great extent at 

 the mercy of his bees, and cannot well control these 

 second swarms, but with frame-hives they can alwa}'s 

 be prevented ; for after the first swarm has left, he can 

 take care that no queen-cells remain in the hive, 

 except just that one which is needed to supply a new 

 queen for the hive itself, and without another queen 

 the bees, of course, cannot leave the hive in a second 

 swarm. 



Virgil describes another way of preventing a 

 swarm, namely, by clipping the wings of the queen — 

 sometimes practised even now. 



' The task is easy : but to clip the wings 

 Of their high-flying arbitrary kings : 

 At their command, the people swarm away : 

 Confine the tyrant, and the slaves will stay.' 



Virgil (by Dryden). 



After the first or second swarm has left, if two 

 young queens happen to issue from their cells, as 



from a third swarm of Syrian bees. The young queens of these 

 races rarely fight, but live amicably together. I have counted 

 fourteen on a single comb, and the worker bees destroy the 

 supernumeraries after the swarm has issued, sometimes taking a 

 week to complete the slaughter. I am not sure that the workers 

 do not delay the destruction until one of the young queens is 

 ready to become a mother — a further proof of their wonderful 

 instinct.'— Rev. G. Raynor. 



