BEE MANUAL. 189 
habits of the bee and the commencement and duration of the 
swarming season ; 2, the sources from which the chief honey 
harvest is to be derived, when they come into blossom, and 
consequently, when the chief take of honey should commence ; 
and 3, the race of bees he keeps, and their natural tendency to 
increase by swarming, which tendency is greater in some races 
than in others. 
The bearing of these circumstances upon the matter will be 
apparent when it is borne in mind that in some climates, where 
the bees are inactive during nearly half the year, and where 
the honey season is probably very short, the ordinary swarming 
period may occur just at the commencement of that honey 
season. If the bees should swarm just at that time, unless 
recourse be had to the most improved system of management, 
the swarm or new stock will be taken up in building comb, 
and the parent stock in rearing a young queen and recruiting 
its strength, at the very time when all the workers should be 
employed gathering in the honey harvest, and thus the best 
part of the season may be lost. On the other hand, in coun- 
tries where the climate is mild and the queens begin to breed 
early in the spring, the swarming season may occur a month or 
more before the beginning of the regular honey harvest ; and 
in such a case, if a colony casts off an early and strong swarm, 
then even, if left to nature, the new stock may have ample time 
to build the necessary comb, and the parent stock to be re- 
cruited, so that both may be in a position to take full advantage 
of the honey season, and probably to collect twice as much 
honey as the original colony could have done if it had not 
swarmed. It is obvious that the same rules would not apply 
to both these cases, and there are intermediate phases which 
would require to be treated according to the peculiarities of 
each. 
MODES OF ATTAINING THE OBJECT. 
Whatever rate of increase may he desired, and whatever the 
circumstances of the case may be, there are two modes by 
either of which the bee-keeper may seek to attain his ends— 
the one by “natural swarming” (that is, by availing himself 
of the natural tendency of the bees to cast off swarms, and 
using the art of modern apiculture to control that tendency as 
far as possible in the direction he aims at), the other by 
