182 sw'AEjnxG. 



portunity to deposit her eggs on them, and will sometimes 

 entirely destroy them. 



U"NITING. 



Whenever these swarms issue near enough together, it 

 is best to unite them. I have said that second swarms 

 were generally half as large as the first. By this rule, 

 two second swarms or four third, or one second and two 

 third would contain as mai y as one first swarm ; if the first 

 and second are of ordinary size, I think it advisable al- 

 ways to return the third. But in large apiaries, it is com- 

 mon for them to issue without any previous warning, just 

 as a first swarm is leaving, and crowd themselves into their 

 company, seeming to be as much at home, as if they were 

 equally respectable. 



MOEE TROUBLE. 



When two or more of these after-swarms are united, they 

 are apt to be much more troublesome than others. The bees 

 of each swarm are strangers to the queens belonging to the 

 others. Bees usually make it a rule when coming in con- 

 tact with a strange queen, while their own is present, to 

 imprison her, as before described. So many of the bees 

 observe this practice that every queen is soon surrounded. 

 Directly some of the bees want their own queen, and can- 

 not find her ; forthwith consternation prevails throughout 

 the hive. They run to and fro, fly out and return, set up 

 the call for a moment, then perhaps return to some of the 

 mother stocks ; or if by chance there is a newly hived 

 swarm in the yard, that behaves decently, they will join 

 that and get up an excitement there, just because they are 

 in trouble at home. When there is but one queen, and she 

 is at liberty, she has not the sedate majesty of her mother, 

 but seems often to be elated with her position. She will 

 sometimes fly off and return, at others go back to the 



