PRIMARY SWAUJt. 213 



swarming month. In Texas, on the lower Rio Grande, bees 

 often swarm quite early in March. 



Swarming does not always take place in Spring, although 

 this is the usual time for it. Swarms are likely to issue in 

 any locality, whenever the hive is crowded for room, or nearly 

 so, during a good and prolonged honey-harvest. In warm 

 latitudes, it lasts for several months, owing to a continuous 

 flow of honey. Wherever there are two distinct honey crops 

 (705), there are also two swarming seasons, especially along 

 ■ the low lands or river bottoms, where Fall pasturage is 

 abundant. Swarms, hived during the forepart of either of 

 these honey seasons, are always the best; having a few weeks 

 of honey crop before them, they have ample time to build 

 comb and fill it with honey and brood; while swarms which 

 are cast during the latter part of either the clover or the Fall 

 harvest, coming as they do, just before a dearth of honey, are 

 unable to build comb and raise brood,- and easily perish, if left 

 to themselves. Thus, a swarm harvested in August, in this 

 latitude, at the opening of the Fall crop, stands better 

 chances than one harvested in July, at the close of the clover 

 and basswood crop. 



First or Primary Swarm. 



d09. The first swarm is almost invariably led off by the 

 old queen, unless she has died from accident or disease, 

 when it is accompanied by one of the young ones reared to 

 supply her loss. There are no signs from which the Apiarist 

 can predict the certain issue of a jirst swarm. For years, 

 we spent much time in the vain attempt to discover some 

 infallible indications of first swarming; until facts convinced 

 us that there can be no such indications. 



410. If the weather is unpleasant, or the blossoms yield 

 an insufficient supply of honey, bees often change their minds, 

 and refuse to swarm at all. If, in the swarming season, but 

 few bees leave a strong hive, on a clear, calm, and warm day. 



