292 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
After-swarms.—lIt is not an unusual thing to hear 
a boast of a number of swarms from a stock-hive ; 
but nothing is proved by this beyond the fact that 
a thriving community has been weakened (if not 
destroyed) by too much subdivision. The proprietor 
therefore must not imagine that his care is ended 
with the return of a swarm to the parent hive. 
Though one queen has been removed, several suc- 
cessors are usually at hand, and swarming may 
occur again and again, so long as more than one is 
left. The hive must be watched more especially 
from the eighth to about the twelfth day from the 
departure of a first swarm, after which another 
rarely issues; the probability, or rather the cer- 
tainty, then being, that the first-liberated young 
queen has succeeded in destroying the others—an 
event always to be desired. But the symptoms 
which precede a second issue, if less numerous, are 
more unequivocal than those in the previous case. 
The young princesses are now arriving at maturity, 
and two or more may be ready to come forth at the 
same time; impatiently awaiting the time when, by 
the migration of their eldest sister, it will become 
safe for themselves to leave their prisons. In this 
state of confinement they are objects of gereat 
solicitude, and are supplied with food through a 
small orifice in their cocoon. On issuing forth they 
are already fully able to fly. At this precise period, 
a singular and plaintive call or croak, proceeding 
from the young queens, may be heard, often at a 
distance of several feet from the hive, and more 
particularly in the evening. These notes are of two 
