CHAPTER XIII.. Swarming.

SWARMING.

However populous a stock of bees may be in the autumn, its numbers are greatly reduced during winter, perhaps about six or seven eighths. This loss is more than replaced in the spring, by the amazing fecundity of the queen. Hence arises a disposition to throw off swarms, which, of course, will issue more or less frequently, more or less early, and in greater or less force, according to the temperature of the season, the fertility of the queen, the populousness of the stock, and the attention that has been paid to early feeding.

It is a prevalent opinion, that a swarm consists entirely of young bees; but this is an error: every swarm contains a mixture of young and old; the latter are distinguishable by being of a redder hue, and having ragged wings.

In favourable seasons, a good stock will throw off three swarms, even a swarm of the current year will sometimes throw off another swarm; in this latter case, there is but a small collection of honey, compared with the great number of bees which have been called into existence. I have endeavoured to account for this in page 113. In the Monthly Magazine, for Sept. 1825, an instance is recorded of five swarms being thrown off and hived before the end of July from planting one single stock; the season was favourable, and the situation, (High Armaside in Lorton), particularly so. They were not all thrown off from the first or parent stock, but from that and the earliest swarm. Bosc, the French consul in Carolina, has stated that he had eleven swarms in one season from a single stock; and that each of those swarms, during the same season, threw off the same number of secondary ones!!!! The space which usually intervenes between the first and second swarm is from seven to nine days; between the second and third, the period is shorter; and if there should be a fourth, it may depart the day after that which precedes it.

This succession of swarms must be owing to the great number of young queens that obtain their liberty. As they greatly weaken the parent stock, and are naturally weak themselves, the only resource under such circumstances is the union of two or more of the swarms into one family.

March is the month in which the grand laying of the queen usually commences; yet when January proves mild, the breeding will sometimes begin at the latter end of that month, and it is by no means an uncommon thing for the commencement to happen in February. The queen-bee may naturally be expected to breed earlier in the season than insects in general, from the circumstance of the working-bees storing up food for the young, which other insects, that breed later, do not; as also from her living in the midst of a society which preserves a summer heat during the coldest months of winter. A thermometer in a bee-hive has ranged as high as 74° Fahrenheit at Christmas; and Bonner says that he has often seen his hives with young brood in them in the midst of a severe frost. In the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. +Mr. Hubbard+ has stated that vigorous well-stored hives breed even in the depth of winter. In this perhaps he was mistaken; the finding of eggs and maggots in the cells does not satisfy my mind, as they might have been laid late in the autumn, and have remained stationary till spring. Riem states, that in a bad season the eggs will remain in the cells many months without hatching. Mr. Hubbard was led to make the experiment of suffocating a strong stock in February, to ascertain the state of the brood-combs; in which he says that he found an abundance of brood, in every state, from that of egg to the almost perfect fly; although the preceding January had been very cold, accompanied by frost and snow,--a circumstance which in some measure confirms my supposition, as to the suspended development of the brood. Mr. Hubbard further adds, that on examining two weak hives, in March and April, he found not a single egg. From these very opposite states +Dr. Evans+ infers the great importance of leaving stocks strong in October, and feeding them in an ungenial autumn, conceiving that the bees apportion the numbers of their young to the means they possess of supporting them. That

"The prescient Female rears her tender brood In strict proportion to the hoarded food."

This, however, does not correspond with what will be stated below; from which it will appear, that the queen sometimes lays eggs, in reliance upon an approaching season, and does not let the number altogether depend upon the stock of provision in the hive. The commencement of the queen's breeding may generally be known, by the bees carrying in pellets of farina on their thighs. For want of a sufficient supply of this, as must happen in cold unkindly seasons, many of the nymphs are cast out, having died probably from actual starvation. Hence the necessity, as before stated, of having in the immediate neighbourhood of the hives such early blossoming trees and flowers as afford plenty of farina; and also late blossoming ones, that the bees may be enabled to lay in a store of it, ready for spring.

Swarming may take place at any time between the beginning of April and the latter end of August. It seldom happens before ten in the morning, nor later than three in the afternoon, and never but in fine weather. If it be sultry, bees are apt to rise after a storm, being anxious to escape from the heat of the hive, rendered more intolerable by the confinement which the storm has occasioned. In the sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions, an instance is recorded by +Richard Reed+, Esq. of Lugwardine, of a swarm issuing on the 9th of March; as he supposed, in consequence of there being an insufficient supply of food for the whole family, a part were sent forth to seek their fortunes, lest the whole should perish. The day, he says, was fine, but does not mention the temperature. Probably this was a stock which had bred in the month of February, the swarm issuing from the usual cause, a disproportion between the size of the family and the size of the habitation.

If early swarming be desired, early breeding must be promoted, by feeding with sugared or honeyed ale in February and March, and by keeping the stock warm. And if the apiarian at any time wish to obtain a swarm, he has only to withhold from his bees that accommodation which storifying affords them.

The most advantageous time for a swarm to be thrown off is from the middle of May to the middle of June. This period comprehends the grand harvest season of the honeyed race. After the scythe has cut down the flowers which adorn our meadows and yield the bees such a plentiful supply of honey and farina, there is a very manifest relaxation in their activity; their excursions are not only much less extensive, but less frequent, although the weather be in all respects propitious. Swarms that issue much earlier than the time I have specified, are apt to be small; and should bad weather succeed, feeding will be necessary, to prevent famine. Those that issue later, afford no better promise, either to themselves or to the parent hives; for though late swarms are usually large ones, they will scarcely have time to rear their brood, and to lay in a store of honey, &c. adequate to the support of the family during the ensuing winter and spring. Late swarming is not only hazardous to the bees thrown off, but is injurious to the parent stock, which suffers in proportion to the loss of labourers, that should contribute to the general store of food, and assist in rearing the brood, which is generally abundant, though the season be far advanced.

Hence it is the usual practice, early in the autumn, to suffocate both the swarm and the stock, in order to secure whatever wax and honey may have been collected up to that time. There is however another alternative, as will be seen under the head of Uniting Swarms or Stocks.

If several days of rainy weather should succeed a swarm's going off, the stores they carry with them from the parent hive may be exhausted and endanger a famine; in such a case recourse must be had to feeding.