200 AUSTRALASIAN 



ABSCONDING SWARMS. 



There are few things connected with bee-keeping more vexing 

 than to have swarms leave for parts unknown. Absconding 

 swarms may be divided into three classes, viz., those that go 

 off without clustering, those that leave after being hived, and 

 established colonies that leave their hives in despair. With 

 regard to the first, in my experience the cases have been very 

 rare indeed in which swarms have left without first settling 

 somewhere in or near the apiary. I cannot call to mind half 

 a dozen altogether. But I have known many to leave after 

 being hived, more especially with those hived on the plan of 

 carrying the swarm some distance to the hive immediately 

 after it is taken ; this is the principal reason for my adopting 

 and advocating the plan of carrying the hive to the swarm. I 

 have had very few leave when hived in this way. Sometimes 

 a swarm will not stay, no matter how carefully it has been 

 hived, or what inducement there may be for it to remain. 

 There is no accounting for this. They do not always go 

 straight away, but sometimes give you an opportunity to hive 

 them again and again, only to repeat the same process of 

 leaving their hives. If the queen of such a swarm could be 

 captured and have a wing clipped, it would most likely prevent 

 anyfurther trouble. As tothelastclass, where established colonies 

 leave their hives en masse, this is caused in almost every case 

 through starvation, and is only carried into effect as a last re- 

 source, after the colony has dwindled down and apparently lost 

 all hope of surviving! Of course, no one working on the lines of 

 advanced bee culture will permit such a thing as this to happen. 



Nucleus colonies (see Chapter XII. ) are sometimes known to 

 leave their hives in a body and follow their queen on her 

 " wedding flight," though I do not remember ever having had 

 one that did so. I think this is only likely to occur where 

 very .small nucleus hives and colonies are used for queen- 

 rearing, and I would therefore recommend having none but 

 fair-sized ones, such as described in Chapter XII., and keeping 

 the bees well supplied with brood until the young queens 

 commence to lay. 



It is a good practice to give every newly hived swarm a 

 frame of eggs and larvae either from the parent stock or from 



