24 
Supersedure of Queens. 
Some bee-keepers imagine that an old queen cannot be 
replaced except by swarming, but a little thought will suggest 
that since the old queen normally accompanies the first 
swarm, there will come a time when the old queen must be 
superseded without swarming. In such circumstances the 
bees make a few queen cells, usually not more than three, 
and generally at the close of the honey harvest. The 
selected queen is allowed to emerge, and she may live for 
weeks in the hive along with the old mother. Sometimes, 
indeed, both mother and daughter may be laying in the same 
hive. The supersedure of the queen occurs so quietly that 
it may be missed even by an observant bee-keeper, and we 
thus get stories of queens that have been supposed to live to 
phenomenal ages, the fact being that the old worn-out queen 
had been quietly replaced by the bees without the knowledge 
of the bee-keeper. 
Swarming. 
Swarming is a natural function which must occur if bees 
are not to become extinct; for it is by swarming that stocks 
lost by disease, by queenlessness, and so forth, are replaced. 
Bees about to swarm make preparation inside and outside the 
hive. The inside preparation consists in storing the hive 
from floor to ceiling as it were. There must be abundance of 
bees, brood, honey, and pollen, and, as a rule, the whole 
available space must be filled with comb. The old home is 
never left destitute, while those that have helped to gather 
the stores leave all behind and go out to start the world over 
again with only as much honey as can be carried by each 
bee tilling its honey-sac. Preparations have also been 
made to replace the queen that is to go forth with the 
swarm. A number of queen cells are started on successive 
days so as to provide queens that mature on different dates. 
The normal time for the leaving of a first or top swarm is 
fixed by the sealing of the most advanced queen cell in the 
hive. As a queen takes only seven days to develop after 
