SWARMING.—Chapter XI. 
the comfort of the bees, es- 
pecially for the first day or 
two. 
After-Swarms. 
Among the untoward 
things that the beginner may 
have to meet in the swarming 
problem is that of after- 
swarms. If the parent colony 
which casts the first swarm 
was very strong in numbers, 
there may have been left in 
it enough bees to result. in 
other swarms issuing after 
seven or eight days, called 
after-swarms. There may be 
a second or third or fourth sl 
or even more such after- ial 
swarms. This can be prevent- D5 et 
ed by destroying all but one 
of the queen-cells after the The swarm on this post, if it is to be hived, 
: . will have to be brushed off with a bee-brush, 
issuing of the first swarm, or handled with a dipper or gloved hands. 
for the cause of these after- 
swarms is a plurality of emerging young queens. When the virgin queen 
emerges after the preceding swarm has left the hive, she is prevented by 
the bees from destroying queen-cells that may be present, flies from the 
parent hive with another swarm, and this process may be repeated sev- 
eral times as other queens emerge in the parent hive. These after-swarms 
are undesirable, as they are generally too weak to be valuable. They also 
weaken the parent colony to such an extent that no surplus honey is likely 
to be produced. The plan outlined on pages 64 and 65, by which the par- 
ent colony is moved to a new location on the seventh or eighth day, pre- 
vents most after-swarms. This plan is also described and illustrated on 
pages 87 and 88, 
Swarms Uniting. 
Another emergency that may confront the beginner is that of two 
or more swarms issuing at the same time and clustering together. If 
the beginner has clipped his queens as he should have done, the. best 
plan is to divide the cluster as evenly as he can and distribute about the 
same number of bees to each of the clipped queens now caged in the new 
hives on the old stands. 
In case the queens are laying-queens and not clipped, he may treat 
the large cluster in the same way. If one of these divisions has more 
than one queen, all but one will probably be killed or else the bees may 
form as many clusters as there are queens, when each cluster may be 
hived. If one of the divisions has no queen the bees will appear restless, 
running all about the outside of the hive and in the grass looking for her. 
69 
