38 | 
the return of spring, when it may be used to put a new 
-swarmin. ‘The bees of this new swarm know how to em 
ploy these old cells; they will cleanse them, and the queen 
will supply them with eggs. (See Chap. XIV.) If a lat 
swarm has been able, towards the end of the season, t 
construct cells from one to two-thirds of the capacity of the a 
- box, and the proprietor would feed them in winter, such 
swarm might, in spring, become the strongest in the estab- 
lishment, from the number of cells which the queen would _ 
find to lay in, and which she would supply with eggs, on — 
the first pleasant days. ee 
A colony of bees frequently furnishes numerous swarms 
in the spring and summer. ‘The two or three first, which 
come off in May,* June, or early in July, are the best, and 
generally succeed. ‘Those which follow are rarely good, 
especially if they be very late. In that case, they ought 
to be returned to the hive whence they came, or be joined — 
to a family of earlier swarms. This is an easy operation. 
‘Such late swarms should be put into a box, prepared to — 
form a Scottish hive. The hole in the top should be 
stopped with a piece of cloth. Towards the evening of the 
same day, this box containing the late swarm, should be a 
_ placed under the box containing the family to which itis 
intended to be united; taking care to remove the cloth — 
which intercepts the communication between the two 
boxes. 
Through this communication, the late swarm will ascend — 
and join the older swarm, in the upper box. This associa- — 
tion does not occasion any loss, except of one of the © 
queens. ‘The one which appears, to the joint colony, the — 
least capable of presiding over the labours, will in a day 
or two be found dead, outside of the hive. ‘This manner 
of augmenting the colonies, and preserving the late swarms, 
is very easy and advantageous. oo 
To judge correctly the value of swarms, they ought to — 
be weighed, and the weight noted. The box or pannier — 
should be first weighed, and after the bees are housed and _ 
Settled, it should be weighed again: the difference is the 
weight of the swarm. ‘This attention to the weight of the — 
panniers or boxes, will be found very serviceable in winter, 4 
i 
* This was written for the latitude of Bretagne, in France. In the a 
southern states. of America, bees frequently swarm early in April, 
and sometimes in March, a 
