148 My Bees 



peared to be crowded with bees, so much so 

 that early in May a tremendous swarm came 

 out one day, and after hanging to a cedar tree 

 for some hours, went off to find new quarters ; 

 I was away in the city and lost it. Swarming 

 is nothing more or less than a sign that the hive 

 is too small for the family. The queen goes 

 off with a certain number of the bees to find a 

 new home, but not without leaving things in 

 such a state that a new queen will be hatched 

 out in a few days. Within ten days of the loss 

 of my first swarm, another one appeared on a 

 Sunday, and I found it without difficulty hang- 

 ing to a small cedar tree. I put the cover on 

 an old soap-box, and bored two or three holes 

 in one side of the box with an auger. Then I 

 put it on the ground near my first hive, care- 

 fully cut off the small limb upon which my 

 swarm had clustered, and laid the black mass 

 down in front of the soap-box, within an inch 

 or two of the auger-holes. The bees made a 

 straight line for these openings, tumbling over 

 one another in their anxiety to get in. In half 

 an hour the last one entered. The next day I 

 bought an empty hive in town. Upon opening 



