228 
SUMMER. 
twenty-four hours, I never knew but one failure ! I 
have known a few (two or three) to commence this 
piping, while I supposed the old queen was yet pre- 
sent, and had not left the hive, on account of bad 
weather, but a swarm issued soon after. Also, three 
instances where I supposed the old queen lost, from 
some other cause than leading out a swarm, and the 
stock reared some young ones to supply her place. It 
occurred in or near the swarming season, and one or 
two issues was the consequence. One case was three 
weeks in advance of the season, and the swarm was 
about half the usual size. When a swarm has been out, 
and returned at the last of the swarming season, it is 
much more probable to re-issue, than if it depended 
on an old queen for a leader, that had not been out. 
Such will sometimes be a week or ten days later than 
others. Once I had the first swarm kept back by wet 
weather, and the second came out on the fifth day 
after; several other instances on the seventh and 
eighth ; and one as late as the sixteenth, after the first. 
A RULE FOR THE TIME OF THESE ISSUES. 
This may be put down as a rule, that all after 
swarms must be out by the eighteenth day from the 
first. I never found an exception, unless the follow- 
ing may be considered so : When a swarm left the 
middle of May, and another the first of July, seven 
weeks after, but two cases of this kind have come up, 
and these I consider rather in the light of first swarms, 
as they leave under the same circumstances, leaving 
the combs in the old stock filled with brood, queen- 
