SWARMING. 
CHAPTER XI. 
It will not be long after the beginner has received his bees in the late 
spring till he must expect to have to meet the swarming problem and to 
deal with swarms. The first time he has to do this the task will likely 
seem both hazardous and difficult to him, and he will have to guard him- 
self against “getting rattled.” But swarming for the beginner, in its sim- 
plest treatment, need not be difficult. If he has only a few colonies, and 
wishes to increase the number, he will welcome a first swarm from each 
of his hives and handle it to his profit. Increase of colonies by natural 
swarming is the safest and easiest method by which the beginner can in- 
A typical swarm of bees cut down with the branch of « tree on © 
which the bees had clustered. 
61 
crease the size 
of his apiary. 
The swarming 
season may be 
expected every- 
where in gen- 
eral about the 
time the bees are 
rearing the 
greatest amount 
of brood in the 
spring or early 
summer, for in- 
stance, in the 
northern part of 
the United 
States, in 
May and June, 
according to the 
earliness or late- 
ness of the sea- 
son. This is the 
time of most ex- 
tensive brood- 
rearing if con- 
ditions are fa- 
vorable, and 
swarming is the 
bees’ natural 
method of in- 
creasing. It is 
then that, by a 
sort of seeming 
