SWARMINa AND HIVING. 167 



the queen, should be entirely abandoned. A swarm may 

 be hived in the proper way with far less risk and trouble, 

 and in much less time. In large Apiaries managed on the 

 swarming plan, where a number of swarms come out on 

 the same day, and there is constant danger of their mixing,* 

 the speedy hiving of swarms is an object of great impor- 

 tance. If the new hive does not stand where it is to re- 

 main for the season, it should be removed to its permanent 

 stand as soon as the bees have entered ; for if allowed to 

 remain to be removed in the evening, or early next morn- 

 ing, the scouts which have left the cluster, in search of a 

 hollow tree, will find the bees when they return, and will 

 often entice them from the hive. There is the greater dan- 

 ger of this, if the bees have remained on the tree, a con- 

 siderable time before they were hived. I have invariably 

 found that swarms which abandon a suitable hive for the 

 woods, have been hived near the spot where they clus- 

 tered, and allowed to remain to be moved in the evening. 

 If the bees swarm early in the day, they will generally 



* Dr. Scudamore, an English physician who has written a small 

 tract on the formation of artificial swarms, says that he once knew 

 " as many as ten swarms go forth at once, and settle and mingle to- 

 gether, forming literally a monster meeting !" Instances are on 

 record of a much larger number of swarms clustering together. A 

 venerable clergyman, in "Western Massachusetts, related to me the 

 following remarkable occurrence. In the Apiary of one of his parish- 

 ioners, five swarms lit in one mass. As there was no hive which 

 would hold them, a. very large box was roughly nailed together, and 

 the bees were hived in it._ They were taken up by sulphur in the Fall, 

 when it was perfectly evident that the five swarms had occupied the 

 same box as independent colonies. Four of them had commenced 

 their works, each one near a corner, and the fifth one in the middle, 

 and there was a distinct interval separating the works of the different 

 colonies. In Cotton's " My Bee Book," there is a cut illustrating a 

 hive in which two colonies had built in the same manner. 



