Returning of swarms.—Cases sometimes occur in which it is thought desirable to compel the return of a swarm to the stock-hive. On this subject we will use the words of Payne. “The process,” says he, "is very simple, and I have always found it succeed. As soon as the swarm is settled in the hive, turn it bottom upwards, and, if the Queen-bee does not make her appearance in a few seconds, dash the bees out upon a cloth, or a gravel walk, and with a wine-glass she may be easily captured. Upon this the bees will return to their parent hive. The queen may also very easily be taken during the departure of a swarm; for she appears to leave the hive reluctantly, and may be seen running backwards and forwards upon the alighting-board before she takes wing." I have sometimes found it advantageous, instead of a cloth, to place on the ground four or five sheets of large paper. On these the bees have been spread, and the sheets carried in opposite directions, thus enabling a better search to be made for the Queen; and especially in the case of a second swarm, for then there are frequently three or four. Where there is no Queen, the bees will soon be in confusion and fly to their original home; but in the reverse case, she may be discovered by their congregating in one particular part. Nor is there any danger in thus proceeding; for the bees, being gorged with honey, are not often disposed to attack, with the precaution of not breathing upon them. Moreover, any such operation is best done in the shade, as a hot sun makes the bees less tractable at all times. Occasionally it might happen that, on the issuing of a swarm, the Queen, from inability to fly, falls to the ground, when the bees will return to the hive, which is often attended with advantage.
In judging of the desirableness of compelling the return of a first swarm, we must be guided by circumstances. Should it be a large issue, expediency would dictate the hiving it at once, as a new colony; for the Queen may reasonably be supposed to be a vigorous one, and a compulsory returning of the bees to the parent hive (the result of destroying her) would occasion a loss of valuable time; a young Queen not yet being in a state to commence laying eggs. On the other hand, a poor swarm might denote an unfruitful Queen, to be got rid of in the way we have just pointed out. The bees would re-issue under a young sovereign, after the usual interval, with a large accession of numbers, the produce of the brood matured in the mean time; and this might have the further good effect of preventing an after-swarm, which is always desirable.
It has already been said that on the occasion of a first swarm the old Queen invariably issues with it. It is also a fact that she leaves no actual successor, but that an interregnum usually occurs of eight or nine days; the royal larva being left short of maturity by this period, unless bad weather has interposed to delay the issuing of the swarm, in which event this interval may be much shortened; it is also subject to extension under certain contingencies of weather. The first princess that is subsequently liberated from her cell becomes the future mistress of the hive, unless she leaves it with an after-issue; for the law of primogeniture has been observed to be strictly followed. It is therefore evident that no regal disagreement can occur except in the cases of after-swarms, when a Queen returning to the stock-hive might chance to find a rival, and would have to contest her way to the supremacy.
After-swarms.—It is not an unusual thing to hear a boast of a number of swarms from a stock-hive; but nothing is proved by this beyond the fact, that a thriving community has been weakened (if not destroyed) by too much subdivision. The proprietor, therefore, must not imagine that his care is ended with the return of a swarm to the parent hive. Though one Queen has been removed, several successors are usually at hand, and swarming may occur again and again, so long as more than one is left. The hive must be watched more especially from the eighth to about the twelfth day from the departure of a first swarm, after which another rarely issues; the probability, or rather the certainty, then being, that the first-liberated young Queen has succeeded in destroying the others—an event always to be desired. But the symptoms which precede a second issue are more unequivocal than those in the previous case. The young princesses are now arriving at maturity, and two or more may be ready to come forth at the same time; impatiently awaiting the assistance of the bees to liberate them from imprisonment; for, unlike the workers and drones, they are not allowed by their own volition to leave their cells. In this state of confinement they are objects of great solicitude, and are supplied with food through a small orifice in their cocoon, till one of them is set at liberty, which is never till she is able to fly. At this precise period, a singular and plaintive call or croak, proceeding from the young Queens, may be heard, often at a distance of several feet from the hive, and more particularly in the evening. These notes are of two kinds, according as the princesses emit them from without or within their cells. For want of a more distinctive term, these sounds have obtained the name of piping. To Huber we are largely indebted for the knowledge we possess as regards this peculiarity in the natural history of the bee; and his observations have since received abundant confirmation,—perhaps from no apiarian more satisfactorily than from Mr. Golding. “The first note of piping heard,” says the latter, “is low and plaintive, and is uttered by the princess already at liberty, and I have frequently seen her emit it. She traverses the hive, stopping upon or near the royal cells which still contain brood, and emits her long plaintive note. This, when the other young Queens are sufficiently forward (generally in about two days), is answered by them from within their cells, in a quick, short, hoarse note. After these last have been heard for about two days, the swarm may be expected to come off.” "These sounds, therefore," in the words of Keys, “convey to the apiarian one certain warning, that when heard, he may be assured the first or prime swarm has escaped.” But universal as this rule has been considered, it has not been entirely without exception; for in a stock-hive of Dr. Bevan’s, in the remarkable season of 1852, swarming had been so long prevented by bad weather, that a young Queen became liberated, and escaping into a super, piping was the consequence for two days before the issue of a prime swarm.
After-swarms are frequently accompanied by more than one young Queen; often by three or four, and always in the virgin state. “Indeed,” observes Mr. Golding, “it would appear that all which are ready to quit their cells (one only, be it remembered, being at liberty in the hive, until the moment of swarming) go off with the swarm; leaving the more forward of the younger princesses to come off with subsequent swarms, or ‘fight out’ their title to the sovereignty of the parent stock at home.”
A third and even a fourth issue sometimes takes place, the intervening periods successively becoming shorter, and more piping being heard. As all the royal cells must have been tenanted before the old Queen departed from the hive, it follows that from sixteen to eighteen days comprise the limit during which, under ordinary circumstances, swarming can occur; and thenceforth the Queen-bee is mute for the year. Moreover, the worker brood originally left in the hive will now, or in a few days, be matured, leaving the combs less occupied, probably in any way, than at any other period of the year, until the young reigning Queen is in a condition again to stock them with eggs. This state of the hive is therefore considered by some as the most favorable for examination and excision of old combs, and other operations usually attended to in the spring.
I have known piping after a second swarm has departed, where no third issue has followed. The second swarm, however, in this instance, was restored to the stock-hive on the same evening, together with one Queen. This is often the best time for making a reunion of after-swarms; for I have usually found that all the Queens except one are ejected on the day of swarming: she, being stronger than those still in the parent hive, is able to destroy them on her return to it. If a cloth is spread on a table, placed in front of the old hive, at dusk, the bees of the swarm can be jerked out upon it, and guided to its mouth. In two hours after the reunion just mentioned, piping from a Queen at liberty was heard. The next day two young Queens were ejected; one of them torn from its cell, not having attained its full growth. From the other the sting was protruding, evidently the result of a recent combat. Piping was again heard on the following morning; and soon after, another princess, doubtless the last, was cast out of the hive, which I took away still alive; making five in all, since the issue of the first swarm. We may observe that when swarming has taken place more than once, the original utilitarian principle no longer impels the bees to guard the royal cells; the reigning princess being then permitted to tear them open and destroy any prospective rival.
No point has been better established, than the fact recorded by Huber, as to the destruction of the supernumerary young Queens by their combating together; the sovereignty remaining with the single survivor. “In order,” says Huber, “that at no time there may be a plurality of females in a hive, Nature has inspired Queens with an innate inveteracy against one another. They never meet without endeavouring to fight, and accomplish their mutual destruction. If one combatant is older than the rest, she is stronger, and the advantage will be with her. She will destroy her rivals successively as produced. Thence, if the old Queen did not leave the hive before the young ones undergo their last metamorphosis, it could produce no more swarms, and the species would perish.”
It is not clear by what instinct bees are guided as respects after-swarms, or rather as to the construction of royal cells; for, as has been shown, these abound much more in some hives than in others. The repeated issues occasioned by the presence of supernumerary young Queens, although there has previously been a rapid development of brood, not only leaves a hive comparatively depopulated, but the succession of interregnums is mischievous as operating to suspend, not breeding alone, but almost entirely the gathering of honey. A different kind of instinct appears to direct the bees than is observable at the time of the original issue; for the young Queens will depart in weather that would be thought unfavorable for the issuing of an old one. “The reason seems evident,” observes Mr. Golding; “for when the proper age of the young Princesses has arrived, the swarm must go off, or not at all, as the younger would be destroyed by the eldest.” As a natural consequence, there is evidently less of foresight as regards the future place of abode. Where so much of prudence and seeming intelligence are discernible in all the proceedings of these wonderful insects, it is hardly to be expected that mere chance should direct on so important an occasion as the change of residence; although when a swarm suddenly finds itself in a comfortable dwelling, by the act of hiving, it is rarely inclined to relinquish it. A hive containing a few combs, placed in the season near an apiary, is almost certain to receive a colony, which will sometimes fly to it at once, without any previous clustering. [AB] The instances are numerous of prime swarms proceeding a considerable distance to a new domicile, carefully inspected and cleaned beforehand. I was an eye-witness to an example of this, where the bees, taking a dislike to the hive in which they had been housed, soon after quitted it; and, mounting high in the air, flew in a direct line to the roof of a church nearly a mile distant. But an after-swarm appears to have little or nothing of preparation; and has been known, in seeming perplexity, to commence comb-building in the bush on which it had alighted.