SWARMING 
795 
LOSS PROM SWARMING. 
In the days of the box hive when honey 
was obtained by killing some of the colonies 
in the fall, swarming was considered de¬ 
sirable because in this way the number of 
colonies for slaughter was increased. Mod¬ 
ern beekeeping has entirely reversed this 
view, swarming now being considered ex¬ 
tremely undesirable. Up-to-date beekeepers 
are careful to reduce swarming to the great¬ 
est possible degree and where it can be 
done profitably prevent it entirely. In¬ 
crease can be made to better advantage ar¬ 
tificially (see Increase), for this cun be 
done at the convenience of the beekeeper 
instead of watching the apiary every day 
during the swarming season in order to take 
care of issuing swarms. 
. . , 1 BP 
"Where swarming is not controlled by the 
beekeeper, the loss from absconding swarms 
and from the interruption in the work of 
the bees often causes the loss of good crops 
of honey which might otherwise have been 
obtained. In those localities where swarm¬ 
ing occurs during the honey flow, as in 
most northern locations, swarming if un¬ 
trolled causes great loss, often preventing 
the bees from storing any surplus at all; 
for if colonies are permitted to divide their 
working force into two, three or more parts 
during the honey flow, this division usually 
marks the end of storing honey in the su¬ 
pers for the season unless the honey flow is 
unusually long—long enough to permit each 
division again to build up strong enough to 
work in the supers. 
In some regions as in parts of the South, 
the swarming season comes six or eight 
weeks before the main honey flow. In such 
cases if after-swarming is prevented and 
both the swarm and the parent colony have 
sufficient stores to build up to full strength 
again before the honey flow, the division is 
advantageous; but, even in such cases, it is 
usually less trouble for the beekeepers to 
make the division instead of permitting the 
bees to do so. 
BEEKEEPERS 7 PREPARATION FOR SWARMING. 
The beekeeper should have on hand some 
extra hives containing empty combs or 
frames with full sheets of foundation for 
hiving swarms that issue, unless he expects 
to practice the requeening method men¬ 
tioned later for swarm control. These 
should be prepared in advance of the 
swarming season, so that it will not be 
necessary to nail up the hives and put the 
sheets of foundation in the frames after 
the swarm has issued. It is not necessary 
to have as many empty hives as there are 
colonies in the apiary, for under good man¬ 
agement only a part of the colonies will 
swarm even during a season when the bees 
are much given to swarming. Some make 
it a rule to have half as many empty hives 
as there are colonies of bees if considerable 
increase is desired, but the beekeeper who 
has several hundred colonies and does not 
care for further increase may provide only 
one extra hive for every four or five colo¬ 
nies, and in some cases much less than this. 
As a preventive measure for swarming as 
well as for the purpose of securing as much 
honey as possible, an abundance of supers 
should be provided so that the bees can be 
given all of the super room they will need 
during the season. In the production of 
extracted honey it is important to have 
plenty of empty combs for the extracting- 
supers. If these are not to be had, the ex- 
tracting-supers should be supplied with 
frames containing full sheet: of founda¬ 
tion. Empty combs are not only better for 
the purpose of producing the largest pos 
sible crop of extracted honey, but at the 
same time they are better so far as the 
prevention of swarming is concerned. For 
comb-honey production' the comb-honey 
supers should be supplied with sections con¬ 
taining full sheets of foundation which 
nearly fill the sections. This not only re¬ 
sults in more surplus honey as well as hon¬ 
ey of a finer appearance, but also helps to 
reduce swarming, inasmuch as combs are 
built more rapidly when full sheets of 
foundation are used than when narrow 
strips only are used. 
Some time before the swarming season, 
preferably during the fruit bloom period 
of early spring, the queen of each colony 
should be found and her wings clipped, as 
explained under Queens. Most honey pro¬ 
ducers today consider this important, be¬ 
cause it is much easier to handle any 
swarms that may issue and because it pre¬ 
vents the escape of the swarms if the bee¬ 
keeper is absent. While some of the queens 
may be lost if swarms issue while the bee¬ 
keeper is away, it is better to lose the queen 
than to lose the whole swarm. Of course, 
