270 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
brass kettles, etc., to make the bees swarm, because it was 
observed that sounds imitating thunder make them hasten 
home. 
After a swarm has alighted and hangs from a limb, it 
must gently be placed in an empty hive made ready for that 
purpose, the inside of which is to be perfumed with some 
aromatic plant, as lavender, or mint, etc., and then left in 
a shady place upon the ground until after sunset, when it 
may be removed to its destined place in the apiary. But 
if a swarm should happen to settle within a hollow tree, it 
must be drawn out during the night with a long and flat 
stick, and then placed in the hive. 
It sometimes happens that there are two queens in one 
swarm, which then separates into two very unequal lumps, 
one perhaps as large as a man’s head, and the other about 
the size of an orange ;_ but the two often unite again, even 
at the expense of one of the queens. Reaumure had a 
swarm with three queens, which he placed in a hive. The 
first and second day the bees seemed to be contented, but 
very inactive ; the second day one of the queens was found 
dead, and on the following day another, and then for the 
first time the bees began to work. This is the case with 
all such swarms; the supernumerary queens are always 
killed, for these unhappy creatures can not, like human sov- 
ereigns, find a safe asylum in foreign countries, but are al- 
ways murdered by their rivals. 
Swarms differ in size, according to several circumstances 
that have been already mentioned; some will weigh only 
four pounds, while others will weigh from eight to ten 
pounds, or even more. A good swarm weighs generally 
from six to eight pounds, and the weight, of course, is as- 
certained by weighing first the empty hive, and afterward 
the full one. If the bees are satisfied with the hive, and 
have been properly swarmed, they soon ascend to the upper 
part of it, and in course of two days will make a comb 
