When the bees crowd the mouth of the hive in comparative idleness, it is for the bee-keeper to determine whether he will secure honey or swarms. If honey is desired, supers or caps should be placed on the hives as soon as the bees show the least tendency to cluster. If a piece of new comb be placed on the super in its natural position, the bees will occupy it the more readily; and if the stock-hives be sufficiently commodious, there will not be much fear of the queen bees depositing eggs in the supers, and a large surplus of honey may be expected. If a swarm is desired, it may be obtained in a few minutes, and all the idle bees will be set to work. Of course, it is not natural to force the bees to swarm, but it is also not natural for the bees to be idle; and by forcing the swarm, the bee-master will perhaps save himself two or three weeks of weary watching and waiting. To obtain a forced swarm, puff a little tobacco-smoke into the hive as the first preliminary; this will cause a terrible commotion, and the bees will appear as if determined not to endure it, and will make preparations to quit the hive when they begin to inhale so noisome an effluvium.

They will rush in masses to the honey-cells as a preliminary to their exodus, and commence gorging themselves with honey, which makes them so good-tempered that the hive may be gently turned upside down, and scarcely a bee will attempt to fly or use its sting. An empty skep should then be placed upon the inverted hive, and a bandage placed round the point of contact of the two; then with two light sticks beat the sides of the lower hive so as to cause a slight jarring of the combs: this continued for about ten minutes causes the queen and a great majority of the bees to ascend to the upper hive - in fact, the swarm gathers there, and may safely be placed on the stand.

The original stock-hive should be removed to a distance for a few days, during which time many hundreds of young bees will be hatched, and the hive will be apparently as full of bees as ever. If on driving out a swarm a queen-cell could be obtained from another stock and inserted in the old stock, a young queen would be hatched in about nine days earlier than otherwise; and nine days in summer is something, especially at a time when honey is plentiful. By the insertion of an Italian queen-cell at this time the bees may be Ligurianised, and all the future bees in that hive would be either pure Italians or hybrids; indeed, it is in the province of the bee-master to cause queen-cells to be created for these occasions from the best breeds of bees in his apiary. If a natural swarm be desired, the bee-master must wait the pleasure of his bees, thousands of whom remain idle until some fortuitous combination of circumstances suggests the idea, as it were, to the bees, and they prepare to swarm. This is accomplished in the following manner: The working bees select certain cells containing a fertile egg or young larva, which cells they enlarge and lengthen to such an extent that they appear something like a series of excrescences on the sides of the combs, somewhat in the shape of an acorn, tapering and pendulous, and sealed at the end with a porous covering.

This causes the reigning queen to become greatly excited, and she instinctively endeavours to destroy the growing power which threatens to interfere with her prerogative. She is, however, held in restraint by the bees, who seize her by the legs and wings, and hold her back; and they otherwise prevent her doing mischief by clustering round the objects of her hatred. This goes on for three or four days; but eventually the society in the hive becomes so disagreeable to her majesty that it is unbearable, and she determines on leaving possessions so dissatisfied with her government or person to their own devices; so the signal is given, and the swarm prepares for departure. They crowd to the open honey-cells, and take possession of the honey as the first means of providing fixtures and furniture for the new home they are about to seek. When they issue forth and have alighted, the swarm should be placed in a hive and carried to the stand on which it is to remain. There they cluster closely, and in that condition they generate sufficient heat to convert, by a process of digestion, the honey in their honey-sacs into the material of which their combs are composed, and which is termed wax. This wax cannot be secreted by the bees unless they so cluster.

Under such circumstances is the wax formed, and it issues from small openings, termed wax-pockets, in the sides of the working bees, in the shape of small scales, which are very plastic, and which the bees mould at their will into cells, the shape and size of which are so well known, and about which so much has been written.

In the mean time the royal cells are progressing, and the larva has become a caterpillar, which spins round itself a covering or cocoon of the very finest silk-like material. It then changes to a chrysalis, which in due course becomes a young queen bee. In the case of the hatching and nursing of working bees and drones the process is very similar, though differing in minutiae from the hatching of queen bees; and whether the marked difference in the result in the case of the production of queen bees is due to the quantity or quality of the food, or the shape of the cell, is not at present clear; but it is quite certain that the egg or larva which would have become, under ordinary conditions, a working bee of no sex at all, becomes, under other conditions, a fully-developed female bee.

When the time has nearly arrived for the young queen to come forth, the bees carefully pare away the waxy covering at the end of the cell, leaving only the silken tissue to cover it. This in due time the queen bee gnaws sufficiently to allow of its being pushed open by herself from the inside, when she steps forth to search the comb for honey. Having obtained a supply, her first impulse is to make war on all other young queens or queen-cells; but if it is intended that a cast or second swarm shall issue, the queen bee is held back as before described, and the other queen-cells are carefully guarded until she leads forth the second swarm, which generally happens on the same or the next day. Sometimes two or three young queens issue forth at the same time in different parts of the hive; and if the rage for swarming prevails, and they have not discovered each other, there may be that number of small swarms issue from the hive at the same time and alight in different places. If each of these small swarms was placed in a separate hive, they would require very great assistance under the most favourable conditions; and it would only be in cases where the young queens were the offspring of others of great beauty and fertility that any attempt should be made to save them.

Should they all be placed in one hive, a triangular royal battle might ensue, in which two of them must perish; and it is just possible all might be killed, in which case the bees would return to the parent hive, and remain under the new young queen just hatched or hatching there.

If the weather or other circumstances should cause the bees to determine not to swarm a second time, the first young queen is proclaimed, and she speedily destroys the remaining queens or queen-cells. This she does in a clever way, having regard to her own safety. She does not go to the end of the cell and open it, as in that case the young queen inside could get out, and would fight for it; but she rips open the side of the cell with her mandibles, and stings her enemy in the soft part of her body, after which the bees cast the dead carcass forth, and the queen-cells are pared away by them until there is only left of each so much as is about the size and shape of the cup of an acorn. When two young queens issue at the same time, if they discover each other a royal battle is inevitable, and each strives to gain the mastery and inflict a mortal stab; and it might happen they should so grasp each other as that both would be killed simultaneously.

(To be continued).