Not Always To Be Depended Upon

Category: SWARMING.

One stock in fifteen may commence piping, yet send out no swarm. The
bees will change their minds about coming out, and kill their queens,
or allow the eldest one of them to destroy the others, or some other
way, as they do not always swarm in such circumstances. But when the
piping continues over 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 present, 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.

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Not Always To Be Depended Upon