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 for the purpose of obtaining cells. But generally to see when such cells are being made, when they contain eggs, when these eggs are sufficiently matured for swarming, or abandoned and destroyed, &c. By these signs I predict with certainty (almost) when to expect swarms, and when to cease looking for them. INVERTING A STOCK RATHER FORMIDABLE AT FIRST.