THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
87 
| or end of Septcmer, unless it be wet and cold, 
they will become no numerous ns to fill the 
hive to overflowing, and if left alone will at 
once make preparations for swarming. 
These preparations are as follow : — The 
i queen nnd bees, finding thiirhome is getting 
i too full, arrange that a large portion of 
the family shall emigrate to another home; 
| but ns no colony can be formed without 
| a queen, they prepare for rearing some. 
It is done in this way — the bees select 
some egg* that have born laid three or four 
days and therefore just hutched into a larva, 
and commence feeding them with lsrge 
quantities of specially prepared food, called 
royal jelly, and immediately commence to 
enlarge the cell, so us to hold the food and the 
rapidly growing grubs destined to become 
queens. Seven days after the eggs are laid 
the cells are elongated, and then sealed over, 
when they appear like a little tube of brown 
wax hanging down from the comb to which it 
belongs. In thesecclls, the queens, havingnbun- 
dunce of royal food, arrive at maturity at about 
the fifteenth or sixteenth day after the eggs 
were laid, and then biting their way out at 
the bottom of the hanging cell, emerge a fully- 
developed queen. Now, ns it is a law with 
bees that is very seldom broken, that there 
shall be only one queen in each hive, the old 
queen arranges for her departure some seven 
to nine days before the new queen emerges 
from their cells, and the first fine day she 
quits her home with a large proportion of the 
bees to find new quarters, having all however 
first filled themselves with honey — in short 
the hive has swarmed. 'I he bees and queen 
fly out, whirl about in the air for a little while, 
sending forth a loud humming sound, till very 
soon the queen, getting tired, settle* on some 
bush, tree, or building not far from her old 
home; all the rest of the swarm follow her and 
settle with her, forming a hanging cluster like 
a large bunch of gram'*, or a dense clump of 
bees, if on a building. As a rule, they 
will remain in this position often for 
hours if undisturbed, nnd sometime* even 
for a day and night, but occasionally, after 
a quarter of an hour or so, the queen takes 
flight nguin, and followed by all the swarm, 
starts off lor another locality, often a consider- 
able distance away, and perhaps to some 
hollow tree, or some building which ha* been 
found by some of the bees prior to the swarm 
coming out. Before telling beginner the way 
he should deal with swarms, we will return to 
the hive from which it came, and see what is 
going on. First we find comparatively few 
bee* left, but a few of those that left with the 
swarm may return. The comtw an- full of 
eggs, grub* and young bee* just hatching out, 
and the family rapidly increases daily. In a 
few days, generally six to eight or nine, one of 
the young queens emerges from her cell, and 
make* it her first duty to go around the combs 
looking for other queen cells, w hich she teurs 
open, killing the inmates, so that she has no 
rival in the hive. In a few days after, if the 
weather be fit e, she leaves the hive for her 
wedding tour, and meeting with di ones becomes 
fertilised, returns to the hive, and in a few days 
more commences laying, so as to maintain and 
increase the population of the colony. It, how- 
ever, she fail* to destroy all the queen cells, and 
another queen hatches, a battle royal ensues 
between the two, which nearly always ends in 
one of them being stung to death. It is only 
on such occasions ns these that the queens use 
their stings It frequently happens, however, 
especially if the slock is strong, that as soon 
as a new queen is hatched she takes out a 
second swarm, which is called a cast or after 
swarm. Such swarms are generally much 
smaller than the first, and usually leave the 
parent hive very weak. Se-coiid swarms are 
therefore either prevented by advanced bee- 
keepers, or if they issue, ate returned to the 
parent hive in a manner we shall afterwards 
describe. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Thk Berlepsch and Langstroth Hives 
Compared. 
(Continued. from page 70.) 
( To the Editors of the lieekeejien' Journal.) 
Gentlemen, — Before proceeding further, I 
must correct an error that appeared in niy 
last When speaking of the surplus boxes of 
the Langstroth hive, I said : — “ I find in the 
height of the season that 1 require three or 
four full stories over the brood chamber — never 
less than three; these give together 4320 
inch- s of comb cupncity, as against 646 inches 
in the Berlepuch surplus box— over seven 
times the space " I had apparently reckoned 
the brood or lower box in with the surplus 
boxes; it should have re-ad — two or throe full 
stories over the brood chamber — never le»* 
than two; these- give- together for three, 4420 
] inches, and for two, 2K80 inches, as ngnixst 
646 inches in the Berlepsch surplus box. I here 
is also another slight error, in which 1 have 
allowed eh-vrn frames to the Berlepsch hive 
instead of ton. thus reckoning a gre-ater c aib 
capacity in the brood chamber of that hive 
| than there really is. 
I have shown that, according to the most 
advanced ideus, the difference in the sixe and 
shape of the two hives and thi-ir frames isall in 
j favour of the Langstroth ; and I shall now 
