Scarcely has the swarm arrived at its new habitation, when the working bees labour with the utmost diligence, to procure food and build their combs. Their principal aim is not only to have cells in which they may deposit the honey and pollen, but a stronger motive seems to animate them; they seem to know that their queen is about to deposit her eggs; and their industry is such, that in four and twenty hours they will have made combs, twelve inches long, and three or four inches wide. They build more combs during the first fortnight, than they do during all the rest of the year.
Other bees are at the same time busy in stopping all the holes and crevices they happen to find in their new hive, in order to guard against the entrance of insects which covet their honey, their wax, or themselves; and also to exclude the cold air; for it is indispensably necessary that they be lodged warm and secure from damp, &c.
A second swarm scarcely is, and much less are the third ones called casts worth keeping single, because, being few in number, they cannot allow so large a proportion of working bees to go abroad in search of provisions, as more numerous swarms can, after retaining a proper number for the various works to be done within the hive.
Bees sometimes swarm so often that the mother-hive is too much weakened or reduced in population. In this case they should be restored; and this should also be done when a swarm produces a swarm the first summer, as is sometimes the case in early seasons.
The best way, indeed, is to prevent such swarming, by giving the bees more room; though this, again, will not answer where there is a prolific young queen in the hive; as she well knows that her life is the forfeit of her remaining at home.
Before the union of one or two casts or late swarms is made, it is better to kill one of the queens, if possible, to prevent the queens destroying one another.
If an old hive is full of bees, and yet shows no disposition to swarm, puff in a little smoke at the entrance of the hive, then turn the hive up, and give it some slight strokes on the sides so as to alarm the bees. They will immediately run to the extremities of the combs, and if you then attentively examine them, you will, in all probability, perceive the queen-bee the foremost amongst them. Seize her between your fore finger and thumb, and confine her in your hand till most part of the bees take wing; let her then go, the bees will soon join her, and settle on some branch of a tree. Put them into an empty hive. Restore the old hive in its place, that the bees which have been out in the fields may enter it on their return, and having allowed them to remain there an hour or two, place it upon another stand near or next to its own.
The hive having what may now be called a swarm in it, is then placed on the stand of the old stock; and if the bees in both hives work regularly, carrying in loads of pollen on their thighs, all is well.
Bees are not apt to sting when they swarm naturally, therefore, it is not necessary then to take extraordinary precaution against them; but when any of these violent and artificial modes are attempted, I should advise the operator to be well guarded at all points.
Wildman weighed bees and found it required 4,928 bees to make a pound of sixteen ounces, but the different circumstances in bees may occasion a considerable difference in their weight. When the bees swarm, they come out loaded with wax secreted in their wax pockets and honey in their honey bags, and would weigh heavier than bees taken for that purpose by chance; and, therefore, the number of the bees is not to be thus computed, from the weight of the swarm; for one fourth of the number at least should be deducted, in lieu of the wax and honey they have brought off with them. There is also another allowance to be made, namely, that when alive, they do not probably weigh so heavy as when dead.