SPRING MANAGEMENT. 301 
princess, already at liberty, will then remain queen 
of the stock.” 
Maiden Swarms.—Under peculiar circumstances of 
early season and situation, a prime swarm will 
occasionally send forth another, the oricinal queen 
again going with it. This will be termed a maiden 
swarm; it is rarely, however, of much value. Such 
issue from the swarm, says Dr. Bevan, ‘ usually 
oceurs between the twenty-eighth and thirtieth day 
of its establishment. The only indication of the 
approach of such an issue, besides those already 
enumerated, is the worker combs, with which first 
swarms generally store their hives, becoming edged 
with drone-cells.”” Indeed, an indispensable con- 
dition necessary to a maiden swarm is a queen that 
has commenced the laying of drone eggs; and this 
rarely happens in the case of a young one, unless 
she is an Italian. 
General Directions on Swarming.—An absurd cus- 
tom, says Mr. Taylor, is very general of beating a 
metal pan, or some such sonorous thing, on the ocea- 
sion of bee-swarming; this is called tanging the bees. 
The practice, doubtless, originated in the precaution 
formerly observed of ringing a bell, or giving some 
signal of the flight of bees, with a view to an 
identification of the property in case of its straying 
to a distance. By degrees the idea became preva- 
lent that the bees themselves were the parties 
interested in the hubbub. So writes our author, and 
such is now the orthodox explanation of tanging ; but 
as this work has been passing through the press we 
have happened to meet with a passage in the Fasti 
