this, would leave too few laborers to attend to the wants of the young
bees. As it is, if the weather after swarming, suddenly becomes chilly,
and the hives are thin and admit too much air, the bees are too much
reduced in numbers, to maintain the heat requisite for the proper
development of the brood, and numbers are destroyed.

In the Chapter on Artificial Swarming, I shall discuss the effect of too
frequent swarming, on the profits of the Apiary. If the bee-keeper
desires to have no casts, he can, by the use of my hives, very easily,
prevent their issue. As soon as the first swarm is hived, the parent
stock may be opened, and all the queen cells except one removed. How
much better this is, than to attempt to return the after-swarms to the
parent hive, can only be appreciated by one who has thoroughly tried
both plans. If the Apiarian desires the most rapid multiplication of
colonies possible, where natural swarming is relied on, full directions
will be furnished, in the sequel, for building up all after-swarms,
however small, into vigorous stocks. It will be remembered that both the
parent stock from which the swarm issues, and all the colonies except
the first, have a young queen. These queens never leave the hive for
impregnation, until after they have been established as the acknowledged
heads of independent families. They generally go out for this purpose,
the first pleasant day after they are thus acknowledged, early in the
afternoon, at which hour the drones are flying in the greatest numbers.
On first leaving their hive, they always fly with their heads turned
towards it, and enter and depart often several times before they finally
soar up into the air. Such precautions on the part of a young queen, are
highly necessary that she may not mistake her own hive on her return,
and lose her life by attempting to enter that of another colony.
Mistakes of this kind are frequently made when the hives stand near, and
closely resemble each other, and are fatal, not only to the queen, but
to her whole colony. In the new hive there is no brood at all, and in
the old one it is too far advanced towards maturity to answer for
raising new queens. Such calamities, in my hive, admit of a very easy
remedy, as I shall show in the Chapter on the Loss of the Queen.

To guard the young queen against such frequent mistakes, I paint the
covered fronts of my hives, with the alighting boards, and blocks
guarding the entrance, of differ