d are of the ordinary size, I
think it advisable always to return the third. But in large apiaries it
is common for them to issue without any previous warning, just when a
first one is leaving, and crowd themselves into their company, and
seeming to be as much at home as though they were equally respectable.

Whenever the hives containing our swarms are full or very near it, the
boxes should be put on without delay, unless the season of honey is so
nearly gone as to make it unnecessary.

I have found it an advantage to hive a few of these very small swarms,
on purpose to preserve queens, to supply some old stocks that sometimes
lose their own at the extreme end of the swarming season. The cases to
be mentioned at the last of the next chapter. I try and save one for
about every twenty stocks that have swarmed.

CHAPTER XIV.

LOSS OF QUEENS.

OF SWARMS THAT LOSE THEIR QUEEN.

Swarms that lose their queen the first few hours after being hived,
generally return to the parent stock; with the exception that they
sometimes unite with some other. If much time has elapsed before the
loss, they remain, unless standing on the same bench with another. On a
separate stand they continue their labor, but a large swarm diminishes
rapidly, and seldom fills an ordinary-sized hive. One singular
circumstance attends a swarm that is constructing combs without a
queen. I have never seen it noticed by any one, and may not always be
the case, but _every_ instance that has come under my notice, I have so
found it. That is, four-fifths of the combs are drone-cells; why they
thus construct them is another subject for speculation, from which I
will endeavor in this instance to refrain.

A SUGGESTION AND AN ANSWER.

It has been suggested as a profitable speculation, "to hive a large
swarm without a queen, and give them a piece of brood-comb containing
eggs, to rear one, and then as soon as it is matured, deprive them of
it, giving them another piece of comb, and continue it throughout the
summer, putting on boxes for surplus honey. The bees having no young
brood to consume any honey, no time will be lost, or taken to nurse
them, and as a consequence they will be enabled to store large
quantities of surplus honey."

This appears very plausible, and to a person without experience
somewhat conclusive. If success depended on some animal whose lease of
life was a little longer, it would answer better to calculate in this
way. But a