Swarm Control. 11 
The hives, supers, and covers should be painted white, because 
the white surface better reflects the sun’s rays. If no shade-board is 
used the covers should be repainted frequently. Other things being 
equal, it is to be expected that the tendency to swarm will be greater 
when dark or weather-beaten hive covers are used than when newly 
painted white covers are utilized, unless shade-boards are used over 
them. 
The beekeeper who is much troubled with swarming can not afford 
to neglect the character and the arrangement of the combs, the size, 
shape, and construction of the hives, or even the color of the hives, 
if he desires to prevent swarming to the fullest extent, though the 
total prevention of swarming can not be expected from the character 
of the hives and combs alone. 
INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY AND SEASON. 
During some seasons few, if any, colonies attempt to swarm, while 
during other seasons and under similar management a majority of 
the colonies may prepare to swarm, especially if comb-honey is being 
produced. Generally speaking, bees are expected to swarm less dur- 
ing seasons of meager supply of nectar, whereas many swarms are 
expected in seasons of plenty; yet bees often swarm freely when 
nectar is not abundant and but little when it is abundant. The 
tendency to swarm, therefore, is not necessarily directly connected 
with the quantity of nectar available during the swarming season if a 
sufficient supply of food has been available previously to enable the 
colony to build up to swarming strength. 
Furthermore, in some regions Swarming may be troublesome dur- 
ing most seasons, even after years of careful selection in breeding, 
together with the best of equipment and management, while in other 
regions bees of almost any strain, when ordinary precautions as to 
equipment and management are taken, are practically nonswarming 
year after year. Why do bees swarm freely one season and refrain 
from swarming the next, if both seasons are prosperous, and why 
do bees in one region habitually swarm excessively, while bees of the 
same strain, in the same kind of hives, and under similar manage- 
ment, but in another region equally good, swarm little, if any? The 
answers to these questions are apparently closely connected with the 
rapidity with which the bees build up in the spring, together with the 
character of the honey-flow and the weather conditions during the 
swarming season. 
INFLUENCE OF CHARACTER OF SPRING BROOD-REARING. 
Throughout the entire country there is a definite period during fall 
and winter when brood-rearing is entirely suspended in all normal 
colonies. When brood-rearing begins again in the spring, if sufficient 
