84 SWARMS. 



upon as zfgn of their being ready to fvvarm; 

 but this is deceitful. It indeed may denote 

 that there are bees enough to compofe a 

 fwarm .; but it is alfo a token that there is no 

 princefs to go with them ; for, in want of 

 room, they often continue cluttered feveral 

 weeks. 



It muft be confidered, that when the combs 

 of a hive are full of honey and brood, the 

 fpaces left between, being only half an inch 

 in width each, contain only a third part of 

 the capacity of the whole hive— about four- 

 teen thoufand to a half bufhel — and confe- 

 quently become foon overcharged by a for- 

 ward queen, and the furplus is obliged to 

 lie out; which, in fact, they always do, in 

 fuch circumftances, and perhaps till the mid- 

 dle of Auguft in hot and dry feafons, when 

 but few bees can remain in the hive. 



This cluttering is very prejudicial, not 

 only in the lofs of time, but alfo in what the 

 bees might have acquired by their labour 

 in that interval, ufually the molt productive 

 of any part of the feafon, when every bee 

 ought to be fully employed. Nor is this 

 all : the bees by this indulgence contract a 



habit 



