AETIFICIAL SWAKMING. 93 



agement, -will succeed beyond their expectation by drum- 

 ming rather more than half the bees of a hive ready for 

 swarming into one prepared with sticks and guide-comb 

 for the swarm, and placing them right and left of the old 

 stand. And when no time is spent in looking for the 

 queen, anybody can take off a swarm, artificially, in ten 

 minutes at most, and often in five minutes. It should 

 be remembered that five minutes is quite long enough to 

 drum in hot weather; and during the day, when the bees 

 are at work, four minutes is long enough : when weather 

 is cooler, the bees do not run so fast. If the queen does 

 not go with the swarm, all the bees wiU return within 

 the space of an hour to the old hive. Farther than loss 

 of time, no harm has been done. A second effort will 

 have to be made. It is but rare indeed that the queen 

 does not go with the bees on being first driven up. 



But in artificial swarming, the old or mother hives are 

 deprived of their queens, and, generally speaking, have 

 no eggs set in royal cells. They are therefore without 

 the appearance or prospect of successors to their thrones. 

 What happens? The bees, on discovering their loss, are 

 thrown into a little consternation, which is of short dura- 

 tion. Some few bees will now and then come out of 

 their hives, and run about the front of them in search of 

 their lost queens. When fully convinced they have gone 

 for good, they commence to prepare royal cells for the re- 

 ception of eggs — common worker-eggs — from which they 

 raise queens. Very often they let the eggs selected for 

 queens remain where they find them, but so alter the 

 shape and size of the cells containing them, that they be- 

 come at once " royal cells." 



!N'o fears need be entertained as to the ability of the 

 bees making queens for themselves. They never fail to 

 raise queens, if the hives have left in them sufficient bees 

 to cover their combs thinly. Well, these eggs placed in 



