FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 173 



swirling in delirious joy, but such things do not appeal to 

 me. I do not like swarming. I never did. I don't think 

 I ever shall. In my many years of bee-keeping experience, 

 I think I never looked upon the issuing of a swarm with 

 feelings other than those akin to pain, unless it might be 

 the first swarm I ever had. 



BAD MAXXERS OF SWARMS. 



I am not an expert at hiving swarms. They don't 

 act nicely for me. After I have climbed a tree with 

 laborious pains and shaken down a swarm with a hive 

 under it at just the right place, the swarm instead of 

 entering in a well-mannered sort of style will just as like 

 as not keep flying back every time it is shaken down, un- 

 less it should take it into its head to give me more exercise 

 by taking another tree. I got a ]\Ianum swarm-catcher, 

 but I do not remember that I ever used it with success. 

 One day when I was trying to use it, J. T. Calvert, the 

 energetic business man of the A. I. Root Co., was here. 

 He helped me. He made a catcher of his hands and put 

 the bees in the catcher by main strength. But they 

 wouldn't stay "catched," and they didn't. So I don't like 

 swarming, even if I didn't think it interfered with the 

 honey crop. 



Upon no other subject connected with bee-keeping 

 have I studied so much, tried so many plans, or made so 

 many failures, as with regard to prevention of swarming. 

 If I knew all about just what makes a colony swarm, I 

 would be in better shape to use preventive measures ; but 

 I don't know all about it. Of course I know that want 

 of room and want of ventilation may hasten swarming, 

 and possibly some other things of that kind : but after all 

 there is a good deal of mystery about the whole afifair. 



VEXTILATIOX AXD ROOM. 



I think it is of some use to take pains to see that the 

 bees are never really cramped for room. I believe that 



