CASTS, OK after-swarms. 63 
sidcr in many respects a much superior plan ; one that is 
practioal, and that I hope to see largely put in practice. It 
is this : Have some young queens reared on the plan given 
for rearing Italian queens ; give one of these young queens 
to the old colony as soon as the swarm has left. They aro 
then in good condition for receiving a strange queen, and she 
will generally proceed to destroy- the embryo queens, thus 
preserving after-swarms. This queen will be laying eggs at 
the rate of perhaps one thousand per day, for eighteen or 
twenty days before a young queen of their own rearing could 
be laying, as it would be about ten days before she would 
hatch, and about ten more before she would be laying. In 
absence of a hatched queen, a queen in the cell nearly ready 
to hatch could be given them, which would generally prevent 
after-swarming. She would be hatched before many young 
bees would have emerged to make the hive throng. So they 
would not be much inclined to swarm and would let her de- 
stroy the embryos. A hive that has given off a swarm from 
six to ten days previous, would furnish the necessary nymphs. 
Or remove the queen from a colony a week or more before the 
time you expect swarms and it will produce the necessary cells. 
Queens in the cells will rarely be received any other way than 
kindly. A hatched queen that is not fertile, will not be re- 
ceived nearly so well as one that is already a mother. A 
fertile queen, even if she is a stranger in the hive will be 
clustered over by the bees and fed through the meshes of the 
wire cage, whilst an unfertilized queen will be noticed but little 
more than a worker. Such have always to take care of themselves 
until they become mothers. If the apiarian wishes to change 
his native bees to Italians or improve his Italians, he can do it 
very conveniently by supplying the queens or cells from his best 
Italian stock. Every thing considered, I think it best not to 
aim at more than one swarm from each old stock. Any one 
who thinks this is too slow a way of getting along let him 
calculate the product of five hives of bees, just doubling 
themselves each year for twelve years, allowing the surplus 
honey to pay the expenses. At the end of twelve years sell 
the whole stock at the rate of ten dollars each. I am not 
sure but he will conclude that a desire for a faster increase 
savors a little of avarice. I admit that after-swarms some- 
times do well, and where all the circumstances are favorable 
they may be tolerated. But in four cases out of fivo, it is 
