ay be full of combs, and but few bees, but
swarms when they have got the hive full in time, are very sure to have
bees enough to go into the boxes to work. I have known them to do so in
three weeks after being hived.

OBJECTION TO USING BOXES BEFORE THE HIVE IS FULL.

Some put on boxes at the time of hiving the bees. In such cases the box
is often filled first, and nearly as often will contain brood. I
consider it no advantage, and often a damage to do so; as I want the
hive full any way--and then if they have time let them into boxes,
although it may be buckwheat, instead of clover honey that we get.

CHAPTER XIII.

SWARMING.

TIME TO EXPECT THEM.

The season for regular swarms in this section, I have known to commence
the 15th of May, and in some seasons the 1st of July. The end is about
the 15th of the latter month, with some exceptions. I have had one as
late as the 21st; also a few buckwheat swarms between the 12th and 25th
of August.

The subject now before us is one of thrilling interest. To the apiarian
the prospect of an increase of stocks is sufficient to create some
interest, even when the phenomenon of swarming would fail to awaken it.
But to the naturalist this season has charms that the indifferent
beholder can never realize.

ALL BEE-KEEPERS SHOULD UNDERSTAND IT AS IT IS.

As a guide in many cases, it is important that the practical apiarian
should understand this matter _as it is_, and not as said to be by many
authors. I shall be under the necessity of differing from nearly all in
many points.

MEANS OF UNDERSTANDING IT.

This is another case of "when doctors disagree, who shall decide?" You,
reader, are just the person. There is no need of a doctor at all in
this matter. I will endeavor to give a test for most of my assertions.
To make this subject as plain as possible in this place, I may repeat
some things said before. The facts related have come under my own
observation. I have probably taken more pains than most bee-keepers, to
understand this matter to the bottom _from the beginning_, (I mean the
bottom of the cells). But few apiarians have made the number of
examinations that I have to get at the _modus operandi_ of swarming.
Perhaps I ought not to expect full credit for veracity, when I assure
the reader that I have inverted more than one hundred stocks to get a
peep at the royal cells, some of them near a dozen times in one summer.
I have inverted them frequently fo