CALENDAR. 163 



favourable for honey-gathering, the supers that were 

 placed on strong hives at the end of April may be exam- 

 ined. If found filled and sealed, they should be cut off 

 the hive with a bit of fine wire, raised with wedges for 

 about an hour, and then taken off. If more honeycomb 

 be wanted, and not swarms, larger supers with guide-comb 

 in them should take their places. We say larger, for 

 almost all hives are stronger in bees at the end of May 

 than they were at its commencement. If larger supers 

 be not used, or supers large enough to hold all the bees, 

 narrow ekes should be placed below the hives as well as 

 supers over them. It is bad policy and practice to let 

 bees cluster outside their hives for want of room inside. 



Second swarms may be expected about ten days (gene- 

 rally) after natural swarms, and about seventeen days after 

 artificial swarms. But the time depends on the age of 

 the grubs in royal cells at the time of swarming. By 

 turning up hives as soon as swarms have left them, the 

 royal cells will be found with either eggs or grubs in them. 

 If they contain little worms, floating on something shin- 

 ing, like a drop of milk in each cell, we conclude that they 

 have been there two or three days. If the royal cells are 

 nearly filled, and being covered in (lids formed over them), 

 they are about seven days old, and will be perfected 

 in seven days more, when piping wiU. commence : and 

 three days after this begins, second swarms will issue. 



In every apiary at this .season there is a superabun- 

 dance of young queens, and some of the supernumeraries 

 may be utilised. Lessons of great importance to those 

 •who seek to manage bees profitably may be learned from 

 using surplus queens. Almost every hive that has 

 swarmed naturally, or been swarmed artificially, has one, 

 two, or three more than it requires. These can be cut 

 out and often used with advantage. In the case of late 



