RULE VIII.
ON SUPPLYING SWARMS, DESTITUTE OF A QUEEN, WITH ANOTHER.
Take the drawer from the hive, which was placed there according to Rule 7, and insert the same into the chamber of the hive to be supplied; observing Rule 6 in the use of the slides.
REMARKS.
Colonies destitute of a Queen may be supplied with another the moment it is found they have none; which is known only by their actions.
Bees, when deprived of their female sovereign, cease their labors; no pollen or beebread is seen on their legs; no ambition seems to actuate their movements; no dead bees are drawn out; no deformed bees, in the various stages of their minority, are extracted, and dragged out of their cells, and dropped down about the hive, as is usual among all healthy and prosperous colonies.
Colonies that have lost their Queen, when standing on the bench by the side of other swarms, will run into the adjoining hive without the least resistance. They will commence their emigration by running in confused platoons of hundreds, from their habitation to the next adjoining hive. They immediately wheel about and run home again, and thus continue, sometimes for several days, in the greatest confusion, constantly replenishing their neighbor’s hive, by enlarging her colony, and, at the same time, reducing their own, until there is not a single occupant left; and remarkable as it is, they leave every particle of their stores for their owner or the depredations of the moth.
Colonies lose their Queens more frequently during the swarming season than any other.