OF MANAGING BEES. 25 



after they have l?ft the old stock, alighted, and formed into 

 a compact body or cluster ; and not then, until they have 

 sent oif an embassy to search out a place for their future 

 residence. Now, if the bees are hived immediately after 

 they have alighted, before they send off their embassy to 

 seek a new tenement,, they will never fly away, admitting 

 they have sufficient room — for it is want of room that makes 

 them swarm in the first place — and their hive is agreeable, 

 and clear of every thing that is offensive to them. 



It is proper, then, that bees should be hived immediately 

 after they have clustered in a body. If this is not done be- 

 fore they have had time to send oif an embassy to select a 

 proper habitation, they should be immediately moved to the 

 apiary, or to some place several rods from the spot where 

 they alighted, in order that they may not be' found by their 

 messengers at their return. That bees do send forth mes- 

 sengers to seek out a new residence, after they have swarm- 

 ed and clustered in a body, is evident from the fact that many 

 swarms have been known to enter and take up their abode 

 where a few bees were seen a short time previous. They 

 likewise have been known, in frequent instances, to remain 

 over night, and even several days and nights, before they 

 left for the woods ; and, furthermore, when the bees go direct 

 from the old stock, the bee-hunter takes their course by set- 

 ting his compass, and fixing the old stock as his starting- 

 point ; for bees always take a direct and straight course 

 towards their new residence, when they first start. Now, if 

 the hunter takes the old stock as his starting-point, in con- 

 nection with the place where the bees clustered in a body, 

 he will run as.far from his bees as east is from any other 

 point of the compass. 



Although bees have several, thousand eyes, yet they- are 

 fixed in their places in their head, like s© many suns ; and as 

 9 



