106 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



the oldest queens. They are misnamed, but we have no 

 desire to give them a new name. In seasons remarkable 

 for earHness and abundance of honey, virgin swarms are 

 not uncommon. Indeed in one such season our stock- 

 hives began to send off a second series of swarms. In such 

 fine seasons it is easy to multiply greatly the number of 

 hives ; but for profit, we find that it is better to enlarge 

 hives than to take virgin swarms from them. 



CHAPTEE XXV. 



TDENODTS. 



This is a name we give to swarms evicted or ejected from 

 parent hives three weeks after they sent off their first 

 swarms. Second swarms may have gone from them as 

 well as first ones; but on the twenty-first day after th-e first 

 swarm leaves a hive, the combs are free from brood, save 

 a few drone-cells — drones being twenty-four days in being 

 hatched, and workers twenty-one days. The eggs laid by 

 the queen on the morning of the day she left the hive 

 with the first swarm, come to perfection on the twenty- 

 first day after. The young queen that has taken her place 

 has not begun to lay, and therefore there is no brood in 

 the hive. Very well. Large hives gather a great deal of 

 honey before they swarm. If the weather be fine whUe 

 fruit-trees are in blossom, they generally gather from 

 2 to 5 lb. a-day per liive. In fine seasons, large hives, 

 properly managed, contaia from 20 to 30 lb. of honey 

 before the end of May. New honey will hot be in the 

 ^ market for a month or two after May, if we do not turn 

 out or evict the bees from these hives. But we do turn 



