140 Swarming or Natural Increase. 



CHAPTER III. 



Swarming, or. Natural Methods of 

 Increase. 



The natural method by which an increase of colonies 

 among bees is -secured, is of great interest, and though it 

 has been closely observed, and assiduously studied for a 

 long period, and has given rise to theories as often absurd 

 as sound, yet even now, it is a fertile field for investiga- 

 tion, and will repay any who may come with the true 

 spirit of inquiry, for there is much concerning it which is 

 involved in mystery. Why do bees swarm at unseemly 

 times? Why is the swarming spirit so excessive at times 

 and so restrained at other seasons? These and other ques- 

 tions we are too apt to refer to erratic tendencies of the 

 bees, when there is no question but that they follow natur- 

 ally upon certain conditions, perhaps intricate and obscure, 

 which it is the province of the investigator to discover. 

 Who shall be first to unfold the principles which govern 

 these, as all other actions of the bees ? 



In the spring or early summer, when the hive has 

 become very populous, the queen, as if conscious that a 

 home could be overcrowded, and forseeing such danger, 

 commences to deposit drone eggs in drone cells, which the 

 worker bees, perhaps moved by like consideration, begin to 

 construct, if they are not already in existence. In fact, 

 drone comb is almost sure of construction at such times. 

 No sooner is the drone brood well under way, than the 

 large, awkward queen cells are commenced, often to the 

 number of ten or fifteen, though there may be not more 

 than three or four. The Cyprian and Syrian bees often 

 start from fifty to one hundred queen cells. In these, eggs 

 are placed, and the rich royal jelly added, and soon, often 

 before the cells are even capped — and very rarely before a 

 • cell is built — if the bees are crowded, the hives unshaded, 

 and the ventilation insufficient, some bright day, usually 

 about eleven o'clock, after an unusual disquiet both inside 



