m usually issues on the second or third day after this
sound is heard: although I have known them to delay coming out, until
the fifth day, in consequence of a very unfavorable state of the
weather. Occasionally, the weather is so unfavorable, that the bees
permit the oldest queen to kill the others, and refuse to swarm again.
This is a rare occurrence, as the young queens, unlike the old ones, do
not appear to be very particular about the weather, and sometimes
venture out, not merely when it is cloudy, but even when rain is
falling. On this account, if a very close watch is not kept, they are
often lost. As piping ordinarily commences about eight or nine days
after first swarming, the second swarm generally issues ten or twelve
days after the first. It has been known to issue as early as the third
day after the first, and as late as the seventeenth. Such cases,
however, are of rare occurrence. It frequently happens in the agitation
of swarming, that several of the young queens emerge from their cells at
the same time, and accompany the colony: when this is the case, the bees
often alight in two or more separate clusters. Young queens not having
their ovaries burdened with eggs, are much more quick on the wing, than
old ones, and fly frequently much farther from the parent stock, before
they alight; though I never knew a second swarm to depart to the woods
without clustering at all. After the departure of a second swarm, the
oldest of the remaining queens leaves her cell; and if another swarm is
to be sent forth, piping will still be heard, and so before the issue of
each swarm after the first. I once had five stocks issue from one swarm,
and they all came out in about two weeks. In warm latitudes more than
twice this number of swarms have been known to issue in one season from
a single stock. The third swarm commonly makes its appearance on the
second or third day after the second swarm, and the others, at intervals
of about a day.

After-swarms, or casts, (these names are given to all swarms after the
first,) reduce very seriously the strength of the parent stock; for
after the departure of the old queen, no more eggs are deposited in the
cells, until all swarming is over. It is a very wise arrangement that
the second swarm does not ordinarily issue until all the eggs left by
the first queen are hatched, and the young fed and sealed over, so as to
require no further care. The departure of the second swarm earlier than