100 Texas Dbpaetment of Agriculture. 



hatch, and she immediately proceeds to tear a hole in the side of her 

 rivals' cells and sting the inmates to death. After mating, she be- 

 comes fertile and takes up her duties in egg laying in due time, and 

 the colony soon builds up to its normal strength again. 



It is not wise to allow a colony to cast more than one — the first or 

 prime swarm — and all after-swarms should be avoided. Bach suc- 

 ceeding swarm will not only be weaker in numbers, but the hive from 

 which these swarms issue will finally become a worthless, weak colony, 

 that will not profit the beekeeper anything, and may succumb entirely. 



After a colony has swarmed, all queen cells, except one of the 

 largest, should be removed from the combs and the colony watched, 

 to make sure that the queen from this emerges and becomes success- 

 fully mated. While this prevents immediate after-swarihing, the 

 colony with the new queen may soon be strong enough again to swarm 

 with its new queen, if the desire to do so has not been given up. To 

 thwart the bees in this, it is customary to leave the old hive near its 

 old stand, on which the swarm now is, for a week or ten days. After 

 this length of time, the old colony is moved to its new location in 

 the apiary during the day, at which time most of the bees are flying. 

 The flying bees will find their hive gone upon returning, and the 

 apiarist, being sure to have the hive of the swarm nearest to the 

 flying bees, these will join the swarm. 



This method does not only prevent further swarming of the old 

 colony, by weakening it in strength of bees, but since it is the swarm 

 that will stpre the largest amount of surplus, the addition of the bees 

 aids materially in this direction, as they are worth more, added to 

 the swarm, than if left in the old colony. 



CLIPPING queens' wings. 



It is aggravating to find swarms of bees clustering in almost in- 

 accessable places, especially in the top of high trees. It is also dis- 

 agreeable to lose swarms when nobody happens to be near the apiary. 

 For this reason many beekeepers clip one or both wings of their 

 queens to prevent them going with the swarms that may issue. This 

 is a very simple operation. The queen is grasped carefully by the 

 thorax with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand and lifted 

 from the comb, and with a pair of small scissors in the right, part of 

 a wing is easily clipped off. Exceeding care must be exercised, how- 

 ever, not to clip any of the queens' legs, which have a tendency to 

 get in the way in her struggles to be released. 



The best time to clip queens' wings is in the early spring, as they 

 are easily found in the hive before the colonies become very populous 

 in numbers. Care must be taken not to clip the wings of a young 

 virgin queen, as this well prevent her being mated and she will be 

 worthless. 



The practice of clipping queens' wings is increasing from year to 

 year, not only because they can not then go off with a swarm, which 

 is worth the time and trouble it takes to do it ; but, for another rea- 

 son as important, i. e., to keep a record of the queens and their ages 

 as well. Beginning with clipping the right wings of all the queens 

 of a certain year, the left wings of all queens the next year, and both 



