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 
any further trouble. As tothe lastclass, 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 larve either from the parent stock or from 
