VARIOUS METHODS. 241 



of a size unsuitable for rearing workers. The queenless 

 part of tlie divided liive miglit 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 a new 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 iirst, 



•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 dnring the height of the working-season, that 



often, in less than that time, it does not contain one half its original number. 



16 



