SWARMING SEASON

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SWARM GATHERING

A beekeeper can hardly sit still or put his mind to any other work at the peak of the swarming season. Over the years I have managed to bring this anxiety under control to some extent, at least to the point of more or less putting out of my mind what might be happening in my more distant yards when it is not possible to find out. Nothing is gained by imagining large prime swarms there. Experience has taught me that if I rush to my yards, summoned by such specters, I will probably find no swarms anyway. Still, it is not easy to relax on one of those warm spring days when I am tied to other responsibilities. The rest of the world goes on in a state of relaxed enjoyment, as though nothing were different, while a beekeeper feels as though he were sitting on pins.

Sometimes, though, that warm spring breaks on just the day I have set aside for a tour of my yards, and this, if all goes tolerably well, is like heaven. There is a thrill in gathering swarms, especially if I have suffered winter losses and have some hives standing empty. At this time of the year every apiary can be a source of surprises. I might find an enormous swarm, several, none at all, or perhaps three or four tiny ones clustered here and there....

The unique reward of any swarm, particularly a large one, is seeing it. Of course, a swarm gathered early in the season represents a potential honey crop of significant value, but a beekeeper who lets his thoughts stop there views his craft with an astigmatism. The manner in which a swarm takes over a new hive is always the same, and the thrill of seeing it is always the same, even though it may be the hundredth time.

I dump a prodigious mass of bees in front of a hive, as casually as if it were a bushel of beans, usually onto a cloth that I have spread to prevent entanglement with grass and weeds. There is a momentary confusion as bees move aimlessly and a few of them take wing. Then a few approach the hive, recognize its potentiality, and signal to others by raising their tails high and fanning their wings. The signal is quickly picked up by the other bees, which duplicate it, and within seconds most of them are facing the hive, heads low and tails high in the air as though bowing to Mecca. The mass of bees starts approaching the hive, slowly at first, but gathering speed as they come closer and start pouring in....

This is their home, from that moment and very likely for decades to come. What was before a lifeless thing, without significance, becomes now the foundation of their city and their destiny. From miles around they will henceforth return to this spot, and this one alone. In the course of a few minutes it has become the center of their universe, any other object on earth having meaning for them only in relation to it. They will build it up and protect it with their lives. Nothing will be permitted to befoul this hive, nothing other than a bee will be permitted to enter it, and indeed no worker bee will be permitted to enter except one belonging to this hive. As these bees themselves perish and are replaced by new generations, they will fall outside the hive or be quickly carried out.

The ease with which a swarm is hived is astonishing, but, of course, not every swarm gets hived. Sometimes the swarm is high, inviting the beekeeper to risk a broken neck. More likely, he simply does not see it until too late. Sometimes I first learn of the presence of a swarm nearby by hearing it take wing, and sometimes a swarm takes wing right before my eyes just as I am making preparations to gather it, and then, as all the literature of beekeeping expresses it, "absconds" over the horizon while I watch in dismay.

It is an inspiring spectacle, if one can overcome frustration sufficiently to appreciate it. The cluster of bees that has hung there sometimes for days, until this moment placid, quiescent, hardly resembling a living object, suddenly begins to disintegrate, as though it had received a signal. Within a minute the air is filled with a vast cloud of bees hovering at the spot and keeping themselves together as one. The purpose of this is to insure that the queen is present, to make sure she has had time to take wing and join them. The destiny of the colony for generations and, in fact, for eternity rests in the tiny cells of her body, and there alone. Without her, the swarm would be meaningless. Soon the cloud rises and expands, the individual bees threading their way within it in a pattern of zigzags. It begins to drift away, and for a few minutes one can accompany it over the meadow. Then as they become assured that all is as it should be, the bees gather speed and vanish over the hillside, leaving behind the vacuum of silence, as though nothing had happened. In the presence of such a sight a beekeeper can rise above his limited animality and, for a moment, sense, if not understand, the eternal assurances at which nature forever hints.

EDITOR'S NOTE. This article was excerpted from Mr. Taylor's book, The Joys of Beekeeping, a 116-page paperback that's available—for $5.95 plus $1.50 shipping and handling—from St. Martin's Press, Dept. TMEN, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010.

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