Re: Beekeeping lore

Hi Bill
I find "beekeeping lore" to be fascinating, even if at times comical. 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SWARM IMPULSE
By Allen Latham. American Bee Journal, April 1923
excerpts

To find, then, the true reason why bees swarm we must look into the sex instinct of bees. Sometime in the remote ages some sex instinct brought the phenomenon of swarming into being. Let us search for that happening.  

In the history of the honeybee there was a time when the nest was mature with many drones and virgin queens. These queens did not then fight as they do now. Then, no swarm went out with the old queen. There were no young worker bees, for all the energy of the nest had for weeks past been devoted to rearing the perfect females and drones. Then came a day when sex excitement ran high and forth poured all those queens and drones. Swarming was rather different in that remote time from what it is now. What became of those mated queens? 

Now it is a perfectly natural assumption that when these virgin queens went forth to mate all, or nearly all, of the workers of the colony sallied forth. These workers had wings, and in the excitement of the wedding festivities what would keep those workers at home? One might as well expect any normal human girl to stay away from the wedding of her girl friend. If, then, taking flight and wandering about afterward, what more natural than a few workers should be attracted to one of these newly-wedded queens, and with her start a new nest?

To explain how each step of progress was made in the evolution of the swarm impulse would require a volume, and I fear that I have already transgressed in taking up so much space. Jumping over all time intervening, let us rationally apply our theory to present-day occurrence. A colony becomes prosperous. More and more bees come on and every day sees more worker-bees under the spell of the sex instinct. To a certain extent they satisfy the inner craving by what we term play flight. Finally, as their numbers increase and the nurse-bees have more of that wonderful food than the young larvae of the hive require, they start queen-cells. 

Nothing strange in this, as from the very earliest times the whole energy of the hive was bent on getting new queens when the right time came. They ease their bodies by stuffing cells with royal jelly. The cells are sealed, some of them. The feeling becomes stronger and stronger, in that hive that a wedding exodus is imminent. Why not, seeing that for millions of years bees have gone through this phenomenon of sending out young virgin queens on their wedding journey?

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