SPRING MANAGEMENT. 297 
instances are numerous of prime swarms proceeding 
a considerable distance to a new domicile, carefully 
inspected and cleaned beforehand. I was an eye- 
witness to an example of this, where the bees, 
taking a dislike to the hive in which they had been 
housed, soon after quitted it; and, mounting high in 
the air, flew in a direct line to the roof of a church 
nearly a mile distant. But an after-swarm appears 
to make little or nothing of preparation, and has 
been known, in seeming perplexity, to commence 
comb-building in the bush on which it had alighted. 
Uniting of Swarms.—It has been shown that it is 
easy to compel the return of a swarm of bees to 
the parent hive; but their remaining there depends 
much upon accidental circumstances. We have 
seen that several young queens are often only 
waiting their time and opportunity to leave their 
cells and depart from the hive; and till all these 
are in some way or other disposed of, there can be 
no progress made in the family. Under such 
circumstances, many persons think it best to hive 
all swarms in the usual way, and to strengthen the 
later ones by joining two or three of them to- 
gether; for, separately, these are rarely of any 
value. In cases where more than one after-swarm, 
or subdivided swarm, comes out on the same day, 
each can often with little difficulty be shaken into 
gestion, the hive was left undisturbed. On the day following the giv- 
ing of this advice, a fine swarm of bees suddenly made its appearance, 
undoubtedly from a distance, and entered the hive. Jn this instance, a 
few hundreds, or perhaps dozens, of pioneers alone could have been in 
the secret as to the locality of the chosen domicile to which they so 
sagaciously conducted their queen and a community of perhaps 20,000 
bees. 
