110 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE 



wanderers return to the cluster. When all the swarm has re- 

 turned to the alighting spot not a sound is produced. Then, again, 

 listen at a hive at the close of day, when they rest from their 

 out-door labour — the exhaiustive labour during the honey han^est. 

 As they stand with their rapidly vibrating win^s expanded tan- 

 ning and ventilating the hive, what a peaceful sound they omit 

 a3 they sing their evening doxology, "Praise God from Whom 

 the honey flows." These are sounds that must be learned, and 

 can only be learnt by experience; every bee-keeper knows them. 

 Perhaps not in the order and the language that I have employed, 

 but he knows their change of tone under different circumstances 

 and conditions. 



When examining a hive do not stand in frofit of it. Stand 

 at the side or, better still, behind. In the subject on the arrange- 

 ment of the hives in the apiary I have already cautioned you to 

 have the hives sufficiently far apart from row to row to give the bees 

 room to enter their home without your presence interfering with 

 their direct line of flight. Stand by a hive of bees and watch 

 them going out to their field labours, and returning with the 

 spoils of the trip. On going out, especially if the honey flow be 

 from trees generally surrounding your homestead, after they emerge 

 from the hive they rise in the air, and make abortive attempts to go 

 in as many different directions in quest of honey or pollen. When 

 they have decided, they at once hie away to where they can get 

 the greatest quantity in the shortest space of time. Watch 

 the returning bees. Each one comes in a straight line from the 

 last flower she rifled of its nectar, when she drops almost suddenly 

 to the hive entrance. There is no hesitation. She enters at once, 

 eager to disburden herself of her load. If they are coming from 

 any point in a direction fronting the hive, their line of flight 

 between the last flower wrought upon and their home is a direct 

 one. Keeping rather high in the air, until near the hive, they 

 gradually descend, forming an inclined plane to the eutrauce. 

 But, if the foraging ground be somewhere away to the back of their 

 home, they keep at about the same altitude till they get a little 

 beyond their home, when they drop suddeidy to the entrance. 

 If bees are interrupted in their line of flight by an animated object 

 near the entrance to their home, they are at once angered. If you 

 stand in front of that line you become that object, and the bees 

 will resent it upon you ; but if you take up a position at the 

 rear, the bees, in their homeward flight, pass over you, and you 



