228 SUMMER. 



twenty -four hours, I never knew but one failure 1 I 

 have known a few (two or three) to commence this 

 piping, while- 1 supposed the old queen was yet pre- 

 sent, and had not left the hive, on account of bad 

 weather, but a swarm issued soon after. Also, three 

 instances where I supposed the old queen lost, from 

 some other cause than leading out a swarm, and the 

 stock reared some young ones to supply her place.^ It 

 occurred in .or near the swarming season, and one or 

 two issues was the consequence. One case was three 

 weeks in advance of the season, and the swarm was 

 about half the usual size. When a swarm has been out, 

 and returned at the last of the swarming season, it is 

 much more probable to re-issue, than if it depended 

 on an old queen for a leader, that had not been out.; 

 Such will sometimes be a week or ten days later than 

 others. Once I had the first swarm kept back by wet 

 weather, and the second came out on the fifth day 

 after; several other instances on the seventh aad., 

 eighth; and one as late as the sixteenth, after the first., 



A RULE FOR THE TIME OF THESE ISSUES. 



This may be put down as a rule, that all after 

 swarms Tfiust be out by the eighteenth day from the 

 first. I never found an exception, unless the follow- 

 ing may be considered so : "When a swarm left the 

 middle of May, and another the first of July, seven 

 weeks after, but two cases of this kind have come up, 

 and these I consider rather in the light of first swarms, 

 as they leave under the same circumstances, leaving 

 the combs in the old stock filled with brood, queen- 



