140 MAY. 



repays himself with their honey. There is some- 

 thing very picturesque in the manner of reclaim- 

 ing the swarms of bees. Their departure is 

 announced for a day or more before it takes place 

 by an unusual bustle and humming in the hive. 

 Some person, commonly a boy is set to watch ; 

 and the moment their flight is proclaimed, a ring- 

 ing is commenced upon a pan or a fire-shovel, 

 which, as country people say, charms them down. 

 They alight, or rather the queen-bee alights, upon 

 the end of a bough ; and the rest of the bees clus- 

 tering, or as it is termed knitting, about her, form a 

 living brown, dependent cone. Beneath this some 

 adroit operator spreads a cloth (upon a table if one 

 can be had), and holding an empty hive inverted 

 under the swarm, suddenly shakes them into it, and 

 places it, with all the captive colony in it upon the 

 cloth. In this state they are conveyed to the place 

 they are intended to occupy; and the following 

 morning they are found to have taken kindly to 

 their new dwelling. They will frequently fix them- 

 selves in the roofs of houses. 



It is a superstition common both in France and 

 in this country, to announce to the bees the death 

 of the master of the family ; in some places, of any 

 individual of the family; or it is believed the bees 

 would die, or fly away. It is also reckoned un- 

 lucky to sell bees, in some places ; and for this 

 reason, when a person parts with a hive, he will 

 not receive its value in money, but stipulates for a 

 certain part of its produce. 



