266 Beekeeping 



beauty of a swarm fail to meet a ready response from 

 him. To him, swarming is the one great handicap in bee- 

 keeping. 



The necessity of keeping the bees together cannot be 

 overestimated. If a colony is divided just before or during 

 the honey-flow, the two parts fail to produce as much sur- 

 plus honey in that honey-flow as the same bees would if 

 they had remained in one colony and in normal condition. 

 rmi;hermore, when bees are preparing to swarm, their con- 

 dition is not so favorable for gathering. Whether there is 

 some physiological difference or whether the lack of concen- 

 trated effort in gathering is due to an unbalanced condition 

 of the colony population is not known, but the results of the 

 swarming preparations are shown in a decrease in the crop. 

 In successful honey-production, it therefore becomes essen- 

 tial that every effort be made to reduce and to overcome the 

 tendency to swarm. 



Variation in swarming. 



It is interesting to note that, in any region, swarming 

 usually occurs at a certain season or seasons and rarely occurs 

 throughout the entire active season. It is most common 

 in those sections of the North in which the main honey-flow 

 occurs in early summer. If there are two heavy honey- 

 flows, swarming may occur in connection with each one, al- 

 though it is usuaUy less troublesome in the later one. The 

 crowded condition of the hive in the production of comb- 

 honey is favorable for the development of the swarming tend- 

 ency and, since the early summer flows of the North are 

 the best for comb-honey, the control of swarming is most 

 difficult in northern comb-honey apiaries. 



That many comb-honey producers crowd their colonies 

 more than is necessary or desirable will be shown in a later 

 chapter, but, even with the most skillful manipulation of 

 the supers and with the proper manipulations throughout, 

 there is always more crowding than is necessary in extracted- 

 honey production. Swarm control is therefore chiefly a 



