The time when swarms may be expected, depends of course, upon climate, season, and the strength of the stocks. In the Northern and Middle States, bees seldom swarm before the latter part of May; and June may be considered as the great swarming month. The importance of having powerful swarms early in the season, will be discussed in another place.
In the Spring, as soon as a hive well filled with comb and bees, becomes too much crowded to accommodate its teeming population, the bees begin the necessary preparations for emigration. A number of royal cells are commenced about the time that the drones first make their appearance; and by the time that the young queens arrive at maturity, the drones are always found in the greatest abundance. The first swarm is invariably led off by the old queen, unless she has previously died from accident or disease, in which case, it is accompanied by one of the young queens reared to supply her loss. The old mother leaves soon after the royal cells are sealed over, unless delayed by unfavorable weather. There are no signs from which the Apiarian can, with certainty, predict the issue of a first swarm. I devoted annually, much attention to this point, vainly hoping to discover some infallible indications of first swarming; until taught by further reflection that, from the very nature of the case, there can be no such indications. The bees, from an unfavorable state of the weather, or the failure of the blossoms to yield an abundant supply of honey, often change their minds, and refuse to swarm, even after all their preparations have been completed. Nay more, they sometimes send out no new colonies that season, when a sudden change of weather has interrupted them on the very day when they were intending to emigrate, and after they had taken a full supply of honey for their journey.
If on a fair, warm day in the swarming season, but few bees leave a strong hive, while other colonies are busily at work, we may, unless the weather suddenly prove unfavorable, look with great confidence for a swarm. As the old queens, which accompany the first swarm, are heavy with eggs, and fly with considerable difficulty, they are shy of venturing out, except on fair, still days. If the weather is very sultry, a swarm will sometimes issue as early as 7 o'clock in the morning; but from 10 to 2, is the usual time, and the majority of swarms come off from 11 to 1. Occasionally, a swarm will venture out as late as 5 P. M. An old queen is seldom guilty of such a piece of indiscretion.
I have in repeated instances witnessed the whole process of swarming, in my observing hives. On the day fixed for their departure, the queen appears to be very restless, and instead of depositing her eggs in the cells, she travels over the combs, and communicates her agitation to the whole colony. The emigrating bees fill themselves with honey, some time before their departure: in one instance, I noticed them laying in their supplies, more than two hours before they left. A short time before the swarm rises, a few bees may generally be seen, sporting in the air, with their heads turned always to the hive, occasionally flying in and out, as though they were impatient for the important event to take place. At length, a very violent agitation commences in the hive: the bees appear almost frantic, whirling around in a circle, which continually enlarges, like the circles made by a stone thrown into still water, until at last the whole hive is in a state of the greatest ferment, and the bees rush impetuously to the entrance, and pour forth in one steady stream. Not a bee looks behind, but each one pushes straight ahead, as though flying "for dear life," or urged on by some invisible power, in its headlong career. The queen often does not come out, until a large number have left, and she is frequently so heavy, from the large number of eggs in her ovaries, that she falls to the ground, incapable of rising with the colony into the air.
The bees are very soon aware of her absence, and a most interesting scene may now be witnessed. A diligent search is immediately made for their missing mother; the swarm scatters in all directions, and I have frequently seen the leaves of the adjoining trees and bushes, almost as thickly covered with the anxious explorers, as they are with drops of rain after a copious shower. If she cannot be found, they return to the old hive, though occasionally they attempt to enter some other hive, or join themselves to another swarm if any is still unhived.
The ringing of bells, and beating of kettles and frying-pans, is one of the good old ways more honored by the breach than the observance; it may answer a very good purpose in amusing the children, but I believe that as far as the bees are concerned, it is all time thrown away; and that it is not a whit more efficacious than the custom practiced by some savage tribes, who, when the sun is eclipsed, imagining that it has been swallowed by an enormous dragon, resort to the most frightful noises, to compel his snake-ship to disgorge their favorite luminary. If a swarm has selected a new home previous to their departure, no amount of noise will ever compel them to alight, but as soon as all the bees which compose the emigrating colony have left the hive, they fly in a direct course, or "bee-line," to the chosen spot. I have noticed that when bees are much neglected by those who pretend to take care of them, such unceremonious leave-taking is quite common; on the contrary, when proper attention is bestowed on them, it seldom occurs.
It can seldom if ever occur to those who manage their bees according to my system; as I shall show in the Chapter on Artificial Swarming. If the Apiarian perceives that his swarm instead of clustering begins to rise higher and higher in the air, and evidently means to depart, not a moment is to be lost: instead of empty noises, he must resort to means much more effective to stay their vagrant propensities. Handfulls of dirt cast into the air, or water thrown among them, will often so disorganize them as to compel them to alight. Of all devices for stopping them, the most original one that I have ever heard of, is to flash the sun's rays among them, by the use of a looking glass! I have never had occasion to try it, but the anonymous writer who recommends it, says that he never knew it to fail. If they are forcibly prevented from eloping, then special care must be taken or they will be almost sure soon after hiving, to leave for their selected home. The queen should be caught and confined for several days in a way which will be subsequently described. The same caution must be exercised, when new swarms abandon their hive. If the queen cannot be caught, and there is reason to dread a desertion, the bees may be carried into the cellar, and confined in total darkness, until towards sun-set of the third day after they swarmed, being supplied in the mean time with water and honey to build their combs.
If a colony decides to go, they look upon the hive in which they are put as only a temporary stopping place, and seldom trouble themselves to build any comb in it. If the hive is so constructed as to permit inspection, I can tell by a glance whether bees are disgusted with their new residence, and mean before long to clear out. They not only refuse to work with that energy so characteristic of a new swarm, but they have a peculiar look which to the experienced eye at once proclaims the fact that they are staying only upon sufferance. Their very attitude, hanging as they do with a sort of dogged or supercilious air, as though they hated even so much as to touch their detested abode, is equivalent to an open proclamation that they mean to be off. My numerous experiments in attempting from the moment of hiving, to make the bees work in observing hives exposed to the full light of day, instead of keeping them as I now do in darkness for several days, have made me quite familiar with all their graceless, do-nothing proceedings before their departure. Bees sometimes abandon their hives very early in the Spring, or late in Summer or Fall. They exhibit all the appearance of natural swarming; but they leave, not because the population is crowded, but because it is either so small, or the hive so destitute of supplies, that they are discouraged or driven to desperation. I once knew a colony to leave the hive under such circumstances, on a springlike day in December! They seem to have a presentiment that they must perish if they stay, and instead of awaiting the sure approach of famine, they sally out to see if something cannot be done to better their condition.
At first sight, it seems strange that so provident an insect should not always select a suitable domicile before venturing on so important a step as to abandon the old home. Often before they are safely housed again, they are exposed to powerful winds and drenching rains, which beat down and destroy many of their number.
I solve this problem in the economy of the bee, in the same manner that I have solved so many others, by considering in what way, this arrangement conduces to the advantage of man.