THE PASTORAL BEES 19 



humming noise, and sees the swarm dimly whirling 

 by overhead, and, maybe, 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 perhaps from beneath one of the 

 hives in the garden a black mass of bees has disap- 

 peared 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 hol- 

 low 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. But there is no accounting for the 

 taste of bees, as Samson found when he discovered 

 the swarm in the carcass, or more probably the skele- 

 ton, of the lion he had slain. 



In any given locality, especially in the more 

 wooded and mountainous districts, the number of 

 swarms that thus assert their independence forms 

 quite a large per cent. In the Northern States 

 these swarms very often perish before spring; but 

 in such a country as Florida they seem to multiply, 

 till bee-trees are very common. In the West, also, 

 wild honey is often gathered in large quantities. I 



