THE BEE. 145 



flight, the hive is hushed, the bees are silent and carefully loading them- 

 selves with provender for their journey. For two or three nights prior 

 to swarming, you]will also hear a peculiar humming noise within the 

 hive ; the second swarm is announced by a different sort of buzzing, 

 being, according to some writers, the result of a contest as to which of 

 the two queens shall lead off from the hive. It is the old queen who 

 leads off the first swarm. 



If a swarm be about to quit the hive, the slightest change of weather 

 will prevent their doing so, but nothing so effectually as a shower of 

 rain ; hence an excellent mode of preventing it, when the bees cluster 

 on the outside of the hive, by syringing them with water from a com- 

 mon metallic syringe. When a swarm leaves the hive, if it do not 

 settle on some tree or bush, but remains in the air, and you fear its 

 going off to too great a distance, if not evading you altogether, you 

 may bring it down by throwing up sand or dust, which the bees mis- 

 take for rain, or by firing a gun, which they mistake for thunder ; hence 

 the old fashion of the country people following a swarm with the noise 

 of fire-shovels and frying-pans. You must be the more diligent in at 

 once securing your swarm, for it is a fact that the bees send out scouts 

 previous to swarming, whose duty it is to select a proper habitation for 

 the colony. It is, on this account, a good plan, when you anticipate a 

 swarm, to leave an empty hive, previously smeared on the interior with 

 honey, in some convenient place, but not too near the old one. 



When the swarm settles, the bees collect themselves in a heap round 

 the queen, hanging to each other by means of their feet. When thus • 

 suspended from a tree, they may be secured by simply holding an empty 

 hive under them, and tapping the branch from which they are suspended. 

 They should, in this case, be sprinkled with honey and water, and con- 

 fined for about twelve hours. When a swarm divides into two or more 

 bands, and settle separately, it is probable that there are two queens. In 

 this case you must secure one of them. 



If, through your inattention, a second swarm comes off, you should, 

 as soon as you have hived it, secure its queen, and return the swarm to 

 the hive ; indeed, when deprived of its queen, it will usually immediate- 

 ly return of its own accord. Swarming is a subject, we have reason to 

 believe, which is very generally misunderstood, most persons desiring to 

 promote it, conceiving that the greater the number of swarms the richer 

 will the hives be in August. The very reverse of this is the case ; for, 

 when a hive is weak in numbers, a sufficient number of bees cannot be 

 spared to go forth for honey ; and hence they will be scarcely able to 

 collect enough for their actual support, far less to collect any surplus for 

 their master's benefit. Hear Mr. Briggs : 



" The swarming of bees is a subject on which much misconception 

 prevails. Most persons who keep their bees in the old straw-hive plan, 

 and suffocating system, appear to anticipate their swarming with much 

 anxiety, and to be of opinion that the greater number of swarms — ^firsts, 

 seconds, thirds, etc; — they obtain from their old hives during the sum- 

 mer, the more remunerative will they prove to the owner at the end of 

 the season { whereas the reverse of tte above practice is much nearer of 

 being the best system to folIoV, which I shall endeavor to elucidate. It 

 o 



