62 
BEE-CULTURE. 
fifteen minutes by taking the cells out of a hive so the bees 
could not confine them to the cells. So many young queens 
just hatching when the after-swarms arc coming off is the 
reason that a number of queens come out with the after, 
swarms, and sometimes cause them to light in different places. 
But if hived they will all be killed against the next morning. 
If one queen is allowed to hatch in advance of others, she 
will proceed immediately to destroy them, by eating a hole 
in the side of the cells and stinging the young queens. A cell 
that has been torn open by the violence of a queen may be 
known by its having a hole torn in the side. Where a queen 
has hatched naturally the opening is in the end. In'rcaring 
Italian queens I have always to be sure not to let the young 
queens remain in the hive or nucleus a single day beyond 
their time of hatching, as all but one are sure to be destroyed. 
If any of those bee-keepers who keep several queens running 
at large in the hive for any length of time, will inform me 
how I can do so I will compensate them well for the informa- 
tion, as it will be of great service to me. The presence of so 
many queens often occasions a great deal of annoyance, by 
inducing the giving off more swarms than are capable of 
taking care of themselves, and the mother colony is so reduced 
that it has not bees enough to make any surplus honey nor to 
cover its combs to guard against worms and robbers. For if 
they keep on swarming until the sixteenth day, nearly all the 
hatched bees will go out and there will only be the brood of 
four or five days’ laying of the old queen to hatch, and it will 
be a full month before the brood of the young queen can bo 
hatching. It is not strange that such colonies should be 
taken by the worms in August when they are most abundant, 
and the bee-keeper will very naturally say: “There, the 
worms have destroyed my best colony.” Or, perhaps, it is 
robbed by other bees, and the blame is charged to the robbers. 
Or, perhaps, the young queens of these after-swarms or of 
the mother colony in their flight to meet the drones may 
be lost. As they now have no brood in the hive from which 
to rear another, the colony will soon dwindle away and be- 
come a prey to worms and robbers. These evils may be very 
much remedied by destroying all the queen-cells in the old 
hive, except one after the first swarm. This prevents after- 
swarms. But when the box-hive is used it is not very con- 
venient to get at all the cells. I therefore #dopt what I con- 
