tS SWARMING. 



and flight-board, and very few of them are at work gathering 

 honey, because there is no place in which to store it. Sud- 

 denly, as if by magic, the hive becomes the scene of the 

 utmost activity, the clusters of bees melt away, the bees pour 

 out of the entrance and fly round the hive in constantly 

 interlacing circles, apparently in a state of the wildest excite- 

 ment. By-and-by the queen comes out and takes wing, but 

 being full of eggs, and therefore unable to fly very far, she 

 generally alights on some tree or shrub near the hive, and 

 the bees cluster round her, forming what bee-keepers call a 

 swarm. When the bees are seen to cluster, they should be 

 shaded from the sun if the weather is hot, as the close pack- 

 ing makes the heat intolerable and may cause them to rise 

 again. To give the desired shade, a sheet may be thrown 

 over the bees, or, if more convenient, an umbrella with its 

 handle thrust between the branches will do very well. The 

 swarm will soon be joined by all the flying bees, and, if 

 properly shaded, may be left to itself while the altered con- 

 dition of the swarmed stock is described. 



CHAPTER II. 



The departure of a swarm weakens a stock very much, but 

 as the brood left by the old queen emerges at the rate of 

 about 3,000 bees daily (the rate at which prolific queens 

 deposit eggs), it rapidly regains its strength. About the 

 eighth day after swarming, the most forward of the young 

 queens is ready to leave her cell. With her powerful 

 mandibles she bites through the cap, and as she keeps 

 turning her body round the while, she manages to cut the 

 cap off as cleanly as the top of an egg is cut off with a sharp 

 knife. Having done this, she pushes her head out as if to 

 look round her, and draws back again. This performance 

 is repeated two or three times, after which she walks out of 

 her cell and dips her head into the first honey cell she finds. 

 For the first day or two, the virgin queen walks about the 

 hive almost unnoticed by the workers. If there are other 

 queen cells maturing, she attempts to tear them open and 

 sting the princesses. If the season is not too far advanced, 

 and if the bees think they can send off another swarm, a 



