51 
BEE-CULTURE. 
moved in the least ; if the bees are on the outside smoke 
them in. If the bees have their queen colls capped and all 
preparations ready for swarming, a sudden change to wet and 
stormy weather will keep them in for several days. They 
may then swarm even if the weather is unfavorable. But 
if the weather continues bad, or the yield of honey begins to 
diminish, they may destroy their queen cells and not swarm 
that season. Even if a colony is ready to swarm, a sudden 
failure in the honey resources may make them give up 
swarming for the season, and sometimes when it has not this 
effect it would have been better for them if it had. 
The failure of honey-gathering also has the same effect on 
their rearing of drones, as was plainly manifested when the 
June frost of 1859 destroyed the bloom and seemed to give 
the bees the impression that winter was set in. They imme- 
diately commenced killing their drones. Even the drone 
brood was torn out of the cells and tumbled oui of the hives. 
In a few days the clover was yielding honey again as freely 
as ever. They reared a new set of drones and swarmed. 
The destruction of drones at any time may be taken as evi- 
dence that swarming is over for the present, and that there 
is not much honey-gathering. If swarming is kept back for 
several days by bad weather, a number of colonies may issue 
the same day. So have plenty of hives on hand, and keep 
a look out the first fair day that occurs, if all the other cir- 
cumstances for swarming are favorable. In the morning of 
a day in which a colony intends giving off a swarm, the bees 
arc generally hanging about the entrance and are very quiet. 
But few bees fly out and in, especially for an hour before 
they swarm. From ten to thirty minutes before swarming, 
whilst they are yet still on the outside, there is a great agi- 
tation inside, running to and fro and filling themselves with 
honey. I know of no reliable sign of swarming other than 
those I have mentioned. Some say they can always tell 
when a colony is going to swarm by hearing the piping of the 
queens, but this is speaking rather fast. It never takes place 
before first swarms.* 
This peculiar piping, which is different from any other noise 
made by the boes, and sounds like pronouncing the word 
perp, is occasioned by the contention of a plurality of queens, 
* By first, or top flwArtns, I mean tho first swarm that each colony giyos off in tho 
boosou. Tho second, third, &c. f arc culled uftor-swurms or casts. 
