SWARMING. 
9 
not convert them into queens. I never, but once, knew a 
colony to rear a queen from brood more than eight days old. 
In this case, I presume, the development of the brood was 
retarded by cold. Bees use all precaution to prevent failure 
to raise a queen, and therefore raise a number of them. One 
hatching out first seeks to destroy all rivals ; passing through 
the hive she eats a hole in each royal cell, destroying the 
embryo queen, leaving the workers to carry out the corpse. 
Should two hatch simultaneously, they will meet and a battle 
ensues, the victor becoming sovereign of the hive. It is not 
left to the workers to destroy the supernumerary queens, 
for some would be killing at one side and some at another 
side of the hive, and thus all the queens might be 
destroyed. But the surviving queen will not destroy herself. 
These young queens begin to leave their cells about the tenth 
or eleventh day after the swarm has left. If the sources of 
honey arc now good, the weather favorable, and the hive 
rather populous, the bees may decide to give off another 
swarm, and consequently not allow the newly hatched queen 
to destroy the embryo queens. She becomes dissatisfied with 
the restriction upon her royal prerogative, and to show her 
displeasure, commences to pipe or bark, the queens in the 
cells replying as well as their confined positions will permit. 
The experienced bee-keeper, from the eighth to the twelfth 
eveuing after the first swarm, puts his ear to the entrance of 
the hive, and if he hears the piping of the queens, expects 
certainly to have a second swarm the next day if the weather 
be fair. The piping noise is of course not heard before the 
first swarm. When the second swarm is gone other young 
queens will hatch, and a third swarm issues two or three 
days after ; thus giving off nearly all the bees of the hive, 
and leaving but little brood to hatch. Such a hive is poorly 
protcoted, and in August or September is likely to be de- 
stroyed by moth or robbers. It is to be noted that all the 
young queens in the hive will be hatched within sixteen 
days of the time the first swarm comes off. There is, conse- 
quently, no danger of any more swarms from that colony, 
that season, no matter how they may cluster outside the hive. 
Several queens may hatch out the same day, and be given off 
with the after-swarms; but they are soon all killed except one 
for each sWarm. If eight days after the first swarm issues, 
all the queen cells except one were destroyed, it would save 
