BEE MANUAL. 191 



race and its spread over any district favourable for their exist- 

 ence. When we recollect that it is only by means of the queens 

 and drones that the race can be propagated ; that these queens 

 and drones cannot exist by themselves, or without the workers 

 of a colony ; that the queens require to be renewed every two 

 or three years, in order to keep up strong stocks, while the 

 workers are only for a season, and the drones for a few months; 

 and finally, that only one queen can be tolerated at a time in 

 any colony, we cannot fail to be struck with admiration at the 

 beautiful manner in which the swarming instinct is adapted to 

 this state of things. 



CAUSES OF SWARMING. 



The queen and a comparatively small stock of workers pass 

 through the winter months under various conditions, according 

 to the climate, as will be noticed under the head of "Wintering." 

 In spring, as soon as the temperature and the forage are such 

 as to set the workers in a state of full activity, the queen com- 

 mences her great work of egg-laying, and as we have seen, she 

 is capable of laying from ten to twenty thousand per week ; at 

 all events, after five or six weeks she will, if all be right, have 

 laid so many eggs, that if all were hatched, and developed into 

 workers, there would be far more than the number requisite 

 for, or that could be reasonably employed in, an ordinary hive. 

 One half of the number will have come to maturity at the end 

 of the six weeks, and the other half will be out in three weeks 

 more. The hive will be already rather overcrowded, and some 

 twenty or thirty thousand bees can be well spared to form a 

 good swarm, there being fully as many in the egg and larva state 

 ready to supply their place within three weeks. In this state 

 of affairs instinct leads the workers to build several queen 

 cells, and the queen, as soon as the queen cells are closed, to 

 lead off the swarm, all filled with honey and ready to commence 

 comb-building at once in their new home, wherever it may be. 

 The bees left behind in the old hive have several young queens 

 maturing, lest one or more of them should fail ; they have also 

 the drones, usually flying at this time, or maturing in the 

 drone-comb, and an ample stock of workers also maturing by 

 degrees— therefore all the elements of their future strength. 

 If the old queen has left with her swarm just when the first 



