OR, MANUAL Oi> THS (S.PIARY. 165 



CHAPTER III, 



SWARMING, OR THE NATURAL, METHODS OF 

 INCREASE. 



The natural method by which an increase of colonies 

 among bees is secured, is of great interest, and though it has 

 been closely observed, and assiduously studied for a long 

 period, and has given rise to theories as often absurd as sound, 

 yet even now it is a fertile field for investigation, and will 

 repay any who may come with the true spirit of inquiry, for 

 there is much concerning it which is involved in mystery. 

 Why do bees swarm at unseemly times ? Why is the swarm- 

 ing spirit so excessive at times and so restrained at other sea- 

 sons ? These and other questions we are to apt to refer to 

 . erratic tendencies of the bees, when there is no question but 

 that they follow naturally upon certain conditions, perhaps 

 intricate and obscure, which it is the province of the investi- 

 gator to discover. Who shall be first to unfold the principles 

 which govern these, as all other actions of the bees ? 



In the spring or early summer, when the hive has become 

 very populous, the queen, as if conscious that a home could be 

 overcrowded, and foreseeing such danger, commences to deposit 

 drone-eggs in drone-cells, which the worker-bees, perhaps 

 moved by like consideration, begin to construct, if they are not 

 "klready in existence. Drone-comb is almost sure of construc- 

 tion at such times. In truth, if possible the workers will 

 always build drone-comb. No sooner is the drone-brood well 

 under way, than the large, awkward queen-cells are com- 

 menced, often to the number of ten or fifteen, though there 

 may be not more than three or four. The Cyprian and Syrian 

 bees often start from fifty to one hundred queen-cells. In 

 these, eggs are placed, and the rich royal jelly added, and 

 soon, often before the cells are even capped, and very rarely 



