VARIOUS METHODS. 241 
of a size unsuitable for rearing workers. The queenless 
part of the divided hive might also have contained a young 
queen almost mature, so that the building of large combs 
would have quickly ceased ; for it is not always necessary that 
a queen should have commenced laying eggs to induce her 
colony to build worker-cells ; we have known a strong swarm 
with a virgin queen, to build beautiful worker-comb, before 
a single egg was deposited in the cells. 
When anew colony is formed by dividing the old hive, 
the queenless part has thousands of cells filled with brood 
and eggs, and young bees will be hatching for at least three 
weeks : by this time, the young queen will ordinarily be 
laying eggs, so that there will be an interval of not more 
than three weeks, during which the colony will receive no 
accessions. But when a new swarm is formed, in the way 
above described, not an egg will be laid for nearly three 
weeks, and not a bee hatched for nearly six. During all 
this time, the colony will rapidly decrease,* and by the time 
the progeny of the young queen begins to mature, the new 
hive will have so few bees, that it would seldom be of any 
value, even if its combs were of the best construction (182.) 
473. One strong forced swarm, can be obtained in any 
style of hive, including box-hives, by the driving process 
(574 to 577) as follows: When it is time to form artifi- 
cial colonies, we mean a few days before swarming time, or 
as soon as the hives are about full of bees,—drum a strong 
stock—which call A—so as to secure all its bees. 
They may be driven either into a forcing box, or into the 
upper story of a movable frame hive, and hived like a new 
swarm, when, if placed on their old stand, they will work as 
vigorously as a natural swarm. If they were driven, at first, 
*Every observing bee-keeper has noticed how rapidly even a large swarm 
diminishes in number, for the first three weeks after it has been hived. So 
great is the mortality of bees during the height of the working-season, that 
often, in less than that time, it does not contain one half its or'ginal number. 
16 
