HIVING BEES. 23 



protect the face and neck from stings. A further protection 

 will, be to turn the upper parts of the socks over the ends of 

 the trousers. If the bee-keeper is very nervous, he had 

 better protect his hands by means of a double pair of gloves, 

 tiut a much better plan will be to pour three or four drops 

 of oil of wintergreen into the palm of one hand and rub it 

 well over both. This substance exercises some mysterious 

 influence on bees, and generally prevents the most vicious 

 from attempting to sting. It can be bought in any first-class 

 dispensing chemist's for about one shilling an ounce, and 

 half-an-ounce will suffice for all the operations required with 

 half-a-dozen hives in the course of the season. The next 

 step is to take the swarm from the tree or shrub on which 

 it is supposed to have clustered on issuing from the parent 

 stock. The bee-keeper takes a straw hive, which he holds 

 with one hand under the cluster, while with the other he 

 catches hold of the branch, to which he gives a rapid shake, 

 first down and then up, the effect of which will be to cause 

 the greater part of the bees to fall into the hive, which is 

 then placed on the ground and turned over, its front edge 

 being propped up with a piece of wood or a stone. If the 

 bees in the part of the cluster left on the branch are seen to 

 ' run about uneasily and then fly off, it may be taken for 

 granted that the queen has been shaken into the hive, where 

 she will very soon be joined by all the flying bees. If, on 

 the contrary, the bees are seen to leave the hive and join 

 those left on the branch, it is a proof that the queen is 

 there, and in this case the operation must be performed 

 again with better hope of -success. Sometimes the swarm 

 clusters on the trunk of a tree, and when this happens the 

 hive must be, held over them while they are driven into it by 

 means of the smoker, or the hive may be held under the 

 bees while they are swept into it with a goosewing. If the 

 swarm clusters near the ^ound, on a head of cabbage for 

 instance, the hive can be placed over them and they will 

 ascend" to it. If the swarm has been got into the hive, the 

 next thing, after the bees are all in, is to confine them while 

 they are carried to the frame hive, and as the first thing they 

 do on going into the straw hive is to cluster from the top, 

 this is an easy matter. A piece of straining canvas, about 



