THE PASTORAL BEES. 27 



feasible : either to fell the tree at once, and seek to 

 hive them, perhaps bring them home in the section of 

 the tree that contains the cavity ; or to leave the tree 

 till fall, then invite your neighbors, and go and cut 

 it, and see the ground flow with honey. The former 

 course is more business-like ; but the latter is the 

 one usually recommended by one's friends and neigh- 

 bors. 



Perhaps nearly one third of all the runaway swarms 

 leave when no one is about, and hence are unseen and 

 unheard, save, perchance, by some distant laborers 

 in the field, or by some youth plowing on the side of 

 the mountain, who hears an unusual humming noise, 

 and sees the swarm dimly whirling by overhead, and, 

 may be, gives chase ; or he may simply catch the 

 sound, when he pauses, looks quickly around, but sees 

 nothing. When he comes in at night he tells how 

 he heard or saw a swarm of bees go over ; and, per- 

 haps, from beneath one of the hives in the garden a 

 black mass of bees has disappeared during the day. 



They are not partial as to the kind of tree, pine, 

 hemlock, elm, birch, maple, hickory, any tree with a 

 good cavity high up or low down. A swarm of mine 

 ran away from the new patent hive I gave them, and 

 took up their quarters in the hollow trunk of an old 

 apple-tree across an adjoining field. The entrance 

 was a mouse-hole near the ground. 



Another swarm in the neighborhood deserted their 

 keeper and went into the cornice of an out-house that 

 stood amid evergreens in the rear of a large mansion. 



