The Cycle of the Year 
71 
mating, the queen begins to lay eggs and from that time 
on the routine of egg-laying is her portion. The so-called 
parent colony is now normal, with a laying queen, comb, 
stores and brood. 
After-swarms. 
If the colony which cast the first swarm is populous, there 
may be left in the parent colony enough bees to cause the 
issuing of other swarms. These are called second-swarms, 
third-swarms or, collectively, after-swarms. When the first 
virgin queen emerges she often does not destroy the other 
queen cells but, instead, flies from the hive with another 
swarm. This may be repeated several times as other queens 
emerge, the swarms usually becoming successively smaller. 
The queens departing with after-swarms are virgins and 
consequently must mate before they are able to fulfill their 
duties normally. Good beekeepers make every effort to 
prevent after-swarms as they are usually too weak to be 
of value and they deplete the parent colony, making the 
gathering of surplus honey impossible. When virgin queens 
fly out to mate, they may be accompanied by a little 
“swarm,” which affords some evidence that the swarm is 
led out by the queen. Nuclei used for mating queens are 
often almost depopulated in this way. 
If the old queen in a colony is prevented from flying or 
is unable to fly (as by having the wings clipped), the bees 
may make several efforts to swarm without her. They 
often finally kill the old queen and depart with a virgin. 
Such a swarm may be the first to issue from a colony in the 
season, but it is virtually an after-swarm in its composition 
and behavior. Swarms of this kind often cause the bee¬ 
keeper trouble if he is unaware that the old queen has 
been superseded, and consequently if the old queen was 
clipped he thinks that the swarm is without a queen and 
will return. 
After-swarms are the plague of the beekeeper’s life, for 
they seem to break all the laws of the bee colony. They 
