214 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



eight more they are mature" (in this latitude, but in 

 California the average time from the egg to the ma- 

 ture queen is fourteen days); "either then or on the 

 morrow piping usually commences, and between this 

 (which constitutes the ninth day of the queenless 

 stock) and the thirteenth day, the second swarm 

 generally takes its departure. When the weather, 

 however, and other circumstances have proved pecu- 

 liarly favorable, a first swarm, as I have already 

 observed, has been known to issue almost imme- 

 diately after the tenanting of the royal cells. Several 

 instances of this early departure of first swarms 

 occurred under Mr. Golding's observation, in 1829, 

 in which year piping did not commence in any one 

 of his stocks, earlier than the thirteenth day after 

 the departure of the first swarm. 



" This will account satisfactorily for the apparently 

 late issue of some second swarms, or more properly 

 speaking, for the time which intervenes between a 

 first and second swarm. It likewise illustrates the 

 cause of the occasional variations in that period, and 

 also accounts for a first swarm being so much more 

 particular than a second or third, respecting the state 

 of the weather at the time it issues. It has the whole 

 period, from the time of securing a royal succession 

 to that of the maturing of the royal brood, from 

 which to choose, which may under peculiar circum- 

 stances be extended to nearly three weeks; whilst in 

 the case of after-swarms, the embryo queens, in their 

 progress to maturity, advance so closely upon the 

 heels of each other, as to compel the bees to issue, 



