MOST BROOD IN SPRING.
In spring and first of summer, when nearly all the combs are empty, and food abundant, they rear brood more extensively than at any other period, (towards fall more combs are filled with honey, giving less room for brood.) The hive soon becomes crowded with bees, and royal cells are constructed, in which the queen deposits her eggs. When some of these young queens are advanced sufficiently to be sealed over, the old one, and the greater part of her subjects, leave for a new location, (termed swarming.) They soon collect in a cluster, and, if put into an empty hive, commence anew their labors; constructing combs, rearing brood, and storing honey, to be abandoned on the succeeding year for another tenement. One in a hundred may do it the same season, if the hive is filled and crowded again in time to warrant it. Only large early swarms do this.
THEIR INDUSTRY.
Industry belongs to their nature. When the flowers yield honey, and the weather is fine, they need no impulse from man to perform their part. When their tenement is supplied with all things necessary to reach another spring, or their store-house full, and no necessity or room for an addition, and we supply them with more space, they assiduously toil to fill it up. Rather than to waste time in idleness, during a bounteous yield of honey, they have been known to deposit their surplus in combs outside the hive, or under the stand. This natural industrious habit lies at the foundation of all the advantages in bee-keeping; consequently our hives must be constructed with this end in view; and at the same time not interfere with other points of their nature; but this subject will be discussed in the next chapter. Those peculiar traits in their nature, mentioned in this, will be more fully discussed in different parts of this work, as they appear to be called for, and where proof will be offered to sustain the positions here assumed, which as yet are nothing more than mere assertions.
CHAPTER II.
HIVES.
HIVES TO BE THOROUGHLY MADE.
Hives should be constructed of good materials, boards of good thickness, free from flaws and cracks, well fitted and thoroughly nailed.
The time of making them is not very particular, providing it is done in season. It certainly should not be put off till the swarming period, to be made as wanted, because if they are to be painted; it should be done as long as possible before, as the rank smell of oil and paint, just applied, might be offensive to the bees.