THOUSAND ANSWERS 
247 
but a clean hive. Your hives were, no doubt, all right, but it’s a 
pretty safe guess that the bees were uncomfortabfe for all that. 
Either they were too warm or had too little air. Likely both. 
When you hive a swarm see that it has abundant ventilation. 
Give it as large an entrance as you can. If practicable, it is a 
good plan to raise the hive an inch or so from the bottom-board 
by putting blocks under the corners. Shove the cover forward so 
as to make an opening of half an inch, or an inch, at the back 
end. After two or three days you can lessen the ventilation if 
you think best. The hive should be in a shady, airy place. If you 
cannot give shade in any other way, cut an armful of long grass, 
put it on the hive, lay two or three sticks of firewood on it to 
keep it from blowing away. Some make a practice of giving a 
frame of brood to the swarm. The bees think that it is such a 
good start toward housekeeping that they are unwilling to leave it 
without great provocation. 
Some secondary swarms leave because their queen has not 
yet mated, and they follow her when she goes out for her wed- 
ding flight. Nothing will hold such swarms except killing the 
queen. Then they would return to the parent hive. 
Swarms, Moving. — Q. When is the best time to move a swarm 
after it is hived? 
A. Right away after you get the bees of the swarm in the 
hive. Don’t wait to get a few scattering bees in ; they can find the 
swarm where you put it, or else they can go back to the old hive. 
Swarm, Prime. — Q. How long after the prime swarm issues 
forth does the young queen hatch? 
A. Ordinarily the first virgin leaves her cell about a week 
after the issue of the prime swarm. If, however, the swarm be de- 
layed a day or more by bad weather, then the time of her emerg- 
ence after the swarming will be lessened a day or more. It may 
also be increased in case the prime swarm issues before the first 
queen-cell is sealed. 
Swarms, Returning. — Q. What is the best manner of return- 
ing a swarm to the hive from whence it issued, so as to make it 
stay, no further increase being desired? 
A. It doesn’t matter how you return the swarm; it will stay as 
well for one kind of returning as another. It is the condition of 
things in the hive that decides whether the swarm will issue 
again, and it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to prevent it. The 
old-fashioned way was to return the swarm every time it issued, 
