156 NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL INCREASE. 
A surplus of bees in a searcity of honey is insufficient to 
bring out the swarm, neither will plenty of honey suffice, 
without the bees and brood. The period of proper dura- 
tion in which all these conditions exist will vary in differ- 
ent stocks, and many times does not occur at all during 
the season. 
PREPARATIONS FOR SWARMING. 
Queen-cells are about one-third done when they receive 
the eggs ; as these eggs hatch into larve, others are be- 
gun, and receive eggs at different periods for several days 
paucese 
ye oh 
ae ) 
Fig. 66.—CcLUSTER OF QUEEN-CELLS. 
a, a, a, Size of the cell when the egg is deposited , 6, Finished cel! ; c, Cel! from 
which a mature queen has issued; d, Cell in which the queen has been de- 
stroyed by arival and removed by the workers ; e, Queen-cell cut from the comb. 
later. The number of such cells seems to be governed 
by the prosperity of the bees; when the family is large, 
and the yield of honey abundant, they may construct 
twenty, at other times not more than two or three, al- 
though several such cells may remain empty. When 
there is nothing precarious about the supply of honey, 
