28

26 CHAPMAN'S HANDY-BOOK.

brought into these islands, and left to themselves in a
protected situation, in a very few years every good
locality would be inhabited by as many bees as the
flowers of that district can support. This is now the
case down North, in the Hokianga, Bay of Islands, and
Kaipara Districts, where the bees have taken to the bush
and multiplied exceedingly. What I have now to do
is to speak more particularly about the act of swarming
itself.

In September or October, as the season is early or
late, the bee-master must begin to look out for swarms,
if his stocks are in good condition. There is no sign, as
far as I know, by which he can tell to a day or so, when
the first swarm will rise ; the after swarms give clearer
signals. For this reason I said, that the first stock with
which a bee master begins his apiary should be within
sight of his door, or else he may chance to lose some of
his early swarms ; and this in the first year of its estab-
lishment will be no trifling loss to him. In after years,
when he has from forty to fifty parent stocks, he may
well afford a swarm or two for the department of the
woods and forests, having, I suppose, by that time fully
supplied all his private friends. Look at your hive in
the quiet evening when the work of the day is over ; if
the bees stand about the doorway, fanning with their
wings, and pleased as it were with the prosperity of
the their large family, --if a pleasant and wholesome smell
comes steaming from the mouth of the hive -- and I
know no smell as pleasant as that of a wealthy beehive,
unless it be a fine dairy of cows at milking time, -- if you
have seen a number of young bees on the lighting board
for the last few days, (and you can tell them by their
being at first covered with a greyish down, and quite
damp, as they issue from the cell), --if in fact, all be
going well with your hive in the month of October,
look out for a swarm. Your children , if you are so
fortunate as to have a fine swarm of them, will soon
learn to stand sentry over the hives, and will take a
pleasure in calling by their own names the swarms
which they have seen rise.