SWAUMING. 147 



evidence. Twelve years ago, I found it necessary to es- 

 tablish many positions with facts, and also to give the 

 manner of obtaining them. But I now have the movable 

 comb hive, which gives ocular demonstrationof what then 

 appeared to be mere conjecture, and it will be unnecessary 

 to specify in every case the process by which I have 

 arrived at certain conclusions. I trust that the objector 

 wiU see the necessity of depending upon facts, instead of 

 any notion, imbibed from nursery tales. Neither will it 

 always do to reason analogically, because nature nowhere 

 gives us an exact parallel. 



A noted politician who has reached an eminent position 

 as a legislator, declared a short time since, that the queen ' 

 bee was a myth — that she existed only in the imagination 

 of ignorant bee-keepers. Every man who has taken the 

 first step in the investigation of apiarian science, knows 

 that he made a fool of himself quite unnecessarily. 



WHEN SWARMING COMMENCES. 



The swarming season in this latitude sometimes com- 

 mences May 15th, and at other times, July 1st. It usually 

 ends about the 15th of the latter month. I have known 

 two seasons in Montgomery Co., N". Y., when swarms 

 continued to issue throughout the entire summer, begin- 

 ning in May and ending August 25th, with no interval of 

 more than a week without swarms. One of thcvse, 1863, 

 was wet, and the flowers yielded but little honey. The 

 native bees sent out about one-third the usual number of 

 swarms, while the Italians continued to swarm for three 

 months. They did not store much more honey than 

 others, but they must have collected more to feed the 

 greater quantities of brood which they reared. Rather 

 than be idle when the yield was scanty, they collected 

 material, made combs, reared brood, and sent out swarms ; 

 and at the end of the season the colonies were as strong, 



