BEES. 105 



*'The exchange of habitation having* been effected, the 

 ulterior proceedings must be regulated by the object in view. 

 If it be wished to have possession of the full hive, it will be 

 simply necessary to leave the decoy-hive in its place, and 

 after covering the honey combs with a cloth to prevent, 

 them fi'om being scented, to carry the bees with their teni 

 porary abode towards their usual place of entrance, when by 

 spreading a cloth on the ground, or on a table, all the bees 

 may be dislodged and made to fall upon it, by a smart 

 stroke with the hands upon the top of the hive, and if 

 one side of the cloth be raised to the resting- board, the 

 bees will gradually ascend, and re-occupy their original 

 station.'* 



Driving is made use of by the Persian villagers, whose hives 

 are made in a cylindrical form, and built horizontally into 

 the walls of their houses, the bees' entrance being outside 

 the wall, and a moveable door inside, the end of the hive 

 projecting' more than a foot into the room. When the 

 villager wishes for some honey, he drums smartly upon the 

 end of the hive which projects into his room, which causes 

 the bees to withdraw to the other. The circular lid is then 

 quickly opened, as many combs as he wishes for cut out, 

 and the lid closed again. 



No one should be without spare hives or boxes ready to 

 be used when required, even if they do not at the outset fit 

 up a complete apparatus. Thus, 



1. A spare box or hive will be ready to receive a swarm 

 obtained in the ordinary manner, with all its picturesque but 

 inconvenient accessories : as long watching to know the 

 moment of swarming ; long runnings, perhaps, to overtake 

 the vagrant young colony, over hill and valley, brake and 

 brier, and amid interminable ear-splitting tumult, which the 

 bees have the bad taste, it is supposed, to like ; and the 

 race often ending in seeing the whole cluster safely de- 

 posited in a neighbour's apiary, who swears it went from 

 his hive. If you wish to avoid all that kind of thing, do 

 your best to give the bees no motive for such wanderings, 

 and every conceivable reason to stay where they are. Put a 

 decoy-hive ready, with a dehcious piece of comib in it (an old 

 hive, with its own combs, will be still more attractive), and 

 it is most likely the scouts sent out to explore will return 



