This is another case of "when doctors disagree, who shall decide?" You, reader, are just the person. There is no need of a doctor at all in this matter. I will endeavor to give a test for most of my assertions. To make this subject as plain as possible in this place, I may repeat some things said before. The facts related have come under my own observation. I have probably taken more pains than most bee-keepers, to understand this matter to the bottom from the beginning, (I mean the bottom of the cells). But few apiarians have made the number of examinations that I have to get at the modus operandi of swarming. Perhaps I ought not to expect full credit for veracity, when I assure the reader that I have inverted more than one hundred stocks to get a peep at the royal cells, some of them near a dozen times in one summer. I have inverted them frequently for the purpose of obtaining cells. But generally to see when such cells are being made, when they contain eggs, when these eggs are sufficiently matured for swarming, or abandoned and destroyed, &c.
By these signs I predict with certainty (almost) when to expect swarms, and when to cease looking for them.
INVERTING A STOCK RATHER FORMIDABLE AT FIRST.
To a person that has never inverted a hive full of bees, even to overflowing, or never has seen it done, it appears like a great undertaking, as well as the probability of ruining the stock! But after the first trial, the magnitude of the performance is greatly diminished, and will grow less with every repetition of the feat, until there is not the least dread attending it. Without tobacco smoke I hardly think it practicable, but with it, there is not the least difficulty. It would be very unsatisfactory to turn over a hive and nothing to drive the bees away from the very places on the combs that you wish particularly to inspect. The smoke is just the thing to do it! As for the bad effects of such overturning and smoking, I never discovered any.
REQUISITES BEFORE PREPARATION OF QUEEN'S CELLS.
I have found the process for all regular swarms something like this: before they commence, two or three things are requisite. The combs must be crowded with bees; they must contain a numerous brood advancing from the egg to maturity; the bees must be obtaining honey either by being fed or from flowers. Being crowded with bees in a scarce time of honey is insufficient to bring out the swarm, neither is an abundance sufficient, without the bees and the brood. The period that all these requisites happen together, and remain long enough, will vary with different stocks, and many times do not happen at all through the season, with some.
These causes then appear to produce a few queen-cells, generally begun before the hive is filled, (sometimes when only half full, but usually remain as rudiments till the next year, when the foregoing conditions of the stock may require their use).
STATE OF QUEEN'S CELL WHEN USED.
They are about half finished, when they receive the eggs; as these eggs hatch into larvæ, others are begun, and receive eggs at different periods for several days later. The number of such cells seem to be governed by the prosperity of the bees: when the family is numerous, and the yield of honey abundant, they may amount to twenty, at other times perhaps not more than two or three; although several such cells may remain empty. I have already said that a failure, (or even a partial one), in the yield of honey at any time from the depositing of royal eggs till the sealing of the cells, (which is about ten days), would be likely to bring about their destruction. Even after being sealed, I have found a few instances where they were destroyed.
STATE WHEN SWARMS ISSUE.