14 SUCCESSFUL BEE-KEEPING. 
ers have commenced nursing the embryo queens. If the 
weather should then prove unfavorable for swarming, 
the young queens are destroyed. On the approach of a 
more congenial season, the work of queen rearing begins 
anew, to be repeated, it may be, again and again, and 
not unfrequently without swarming at all during the 
whole summer. From the ninth to the fourteenth day 
after the issue of the first swarm, the young queens will 
emerge from their cells, when, if the bees are still numer- 
ous, weather propitious, and the honey-yielding blossoms 
plenty, second, and third, or after swarms may be ex 
pected. The bees having previously divided off into as 
many “squads” as there are queens maturing, the first 
queen that issues from her cell generally leads out a 
second swarm, and, in one, two, or three days at farthest, 
if bees are still in considerable numbers, with other cir- 
cumstances favorable, a third, fourth, and sometimes a 
fifth swarm issues. If the bees are not numerous at the 
time of the hatching of the first of the young queens, she 
is allowed her liberty, and will at once seek out and 
sting her rivals in their cells. If the hive be well filled 
with bees from the now rapidly maturing brood, those of 
each queen cluster will stand guard and prevent the 
queen from accomplishing her purpose, and others are 
allowed to hatch. Now may be heard the challenge of 
the queens to mortal combat, for one only can become 
fertile and remain in the hive. The “piping of the 
queens” may always be heard the morning or evening 
preceding the issue of all swarms after the first. If it be 
not heard by the fourteenth day after the issue of the first, 
no after swarm need be expected, and swarming is done 
with that hive for a period of forty days. 
