Let me now bespeak your attention to the practical management of bees, and I shall precede my observations, thereon by addressing a few words to you upon the subject of swarming, though in all probability it is a proceeding familiar to most of you. I have already stated that in the winter and the early spring the queen and the working bees constitute the whole family; but in April and May, in mild weather much earlier, so great a number of eggs is deposited, chiefly worker-eggs, but some portion also of drone-eggs, as, when hatched and brought to maturity, to encumber the hive so much by their numbers and the overpowering heat they produce, unless additional room be afforded them, as to cause the emigration of a large portion of the family. In this case, one division issues from the hive, accompanied by the old queen, leaving the other division in the parent hive. These latter transfer their allegiance to a new queen, one or more being always either ripe or in embryo, some days prior to the swarm's issuing. The same stock will occasionally throw off several swarms in the season, each successive swarm being always accompanied by the princess royal In general all the younger-princesses are kept imprisoned in their cells, till all further intention to swarm is given up, when those that are not required the queen regnant is allowed to destroy, which her jealousy is ever prompting her to do, whether they be required or not, and which nothing but the sedulous guard kept over them by the workers could prevent. If two or more of these royal ladies should happen to be at liberty at the same time, there is always a contest, which continues till fatal to all but one. A swarm consists of a queen, several thousands of working bees of all ages, generally also of a few hundreds of drones. When all things are prepared for their issuing forth, storing themselves, for instance, with honey sufficient for a few days' consumption, and, according to the opinion of some apiarians (myself among the rest), having made choice of a future residence, there arises great commotion in the hive, and those bees that have, by previous concert, decided upon emigrating, sally forth through the entrance of the hive in a rapid and tumultuous manner, and with so loud a buzz as to be audible at some distance. After hovering rather diffusely for some minutes in the air, they gradually congregate and settle round their queen, usually upon a tree or bush, from which, as soon as they have become tolerably quiet, they are shaken into a hive held beneath them; the hive is then instantly inverted, and placed on a table covered with a cloth upon which two sticks have been laid to prop up the hive sufficiently to allow a free passage for the bees. The whole is then well sheltered from the sun by green boughs or some other protection. If the hive prove agreeable to the bees, they soon recover from the commotion, and as soon as they have become tolerably