794 
SWARMING 
less the weather is prohibitive. If other 
after-swarms are to follow, the piping may 
again be heard after one or more after- 
swarms have issued. Each after-swarm 
seeks a new home where it establishes itself 
as a new colony. If sufficient food is avail¬ 
able these little colonies may build up to 
normal strength for winter; but too often 
they are not able to do so, for sometimes 
the last of the after-swarms to issue con¬ 
tains less than a pint of bees. 
When further swarming is given up, 
sometimes after the casting of from two to 
five after-swarms, all but one of the re¬ 
maining young queens are killed. About 
10 days after emergence the surviving 
young queen usually begins to lay, and the 
parent colony again takes up brood-rearing. 
This makes an interval of about 16 days 
when no eggs were laid in the parent col¬ 
ony. 
PRIME SWARM WITH A YOUNG QUEEN. 
Conditions somewhat similar to those in 
after-swarming are sometimes brought 
about without the issuing of a normal prime 
swarm accompanied by the old queen. If 
the old queen is failing or is removed from 
the hive by the beekeeper or is lost thru 
accident, the bees proceed to rear another. 
Instead of rearing but one queen they build 
several queen-cells, and if the colony is 
prosperous at the time the first one of 
these young queens emerges, and especially 
if nectar is abundant in the fields, the bees 
usually swarm instead of permitting the 
young queen to destroy the others. In this 
case the first swarm is accompanied by a 
young queen, and after-swarming follows 
in one or two days instead of after an in¬ 
terval of a week or more as when the prime 
swarm is accompanied by the old queen in 
the normal way. In such cases the first 
swarm, tho accompanied by a young queen, 
may be as large as the normal prime swarm. 
It will be noted that after-swarming is a* 
result of a plurality of young queens and 
that in nature the division is often carried 
too far for safety, since many of these 
little swarms are doomed to perish the fol¬ 
lowing winter, and sometimes the parent 
colony is so depleted by excessive aftei’- 
swarming that it fails to store enough hon¬ 
ey for winter. Obviously the beekeeper 
cannot afford to permit the bees to carry 
out their program of swarming in their 
own way as described above. He therefore 
manages to prevent after-swarming (see 
After-swarming) and also, as far as prac¬ 
ticable, to eliminate all swarming. 
THE SWARMING SEASON. 
Normal swarming takes place during a 
more or less well-defined period called the 
“swarming season.” In some localities 
there are two or more swarming seasons 
during the year, but usually most of the 
swarming takes place within from two to 
six weeks. The swarming season for any 
locality comes at about the time the colony 
has the greatest amount of brood and 
emerging young bees in the spring. The 
swarming season may begin as early as 
March in the extreme south, while in the 
far north it may not begin until the first of 
June or even later. If the colonies are not 
strong enough and prosperous enough to 
build up to great strength early in the 
spring, the swarming season may come later 
after the colonies have built up to swarming 
strength. In localities where there is an 
early honey flow in the spring, followed 
later by a fall honey flow, there may be a 
secondary swarming season during the fall 
honey flow. For example, in some parts of 
the buckwheat region the bees will swarm 
in May or June when sufficient nectar is 
available from fruit bloom and clover, then 
again in August or even in September dur¬ 
ing the fall honey flow. Where the early 
and late honey flows overlap each other, 
forming a long continuous honey flow, the 
swarming season may be greatly prolonged, 
especially if the bees were not uniform in 
strength in the spring, so that some become 
strong enough to swarm early while others 
reach swarming strength later. Swarming 
does not often occur after the close of the 
honey flow. If preparations for swarming 
have been delayed until near the close of 
the honey flow, the bees often tear down 
the queen-cells and give up swarming as 
soon as nectar becomes scarce. On the 
other hand, early in the spring colonies 
often swarm even when not enough nectar 
is available to keep them from starving un¬ 
less fed by the beekeeper. The instinct to 
swarm is much stronger when the colony 
first reaches swarming strength than after¬ 
wards, 
