NATURAL SWARMING. 207 



direct line, making a bee line, as it may very appro- 

 priately be called, to and immediately enter the only 

 tree for acres around, perhaps, in which there is an 

 opening, and a sufficient cavity to contain the swarm, 

 and afford them shelter, it proves very conclusively, 

 to me, at least, that spies had visited it before, and 

 now serve as pilots to conduct the swarm thither. 



PLACES GENERALLY SELECTED BY SWARMS. 



Bees have sometimes pitched upon Very singular 

 places for their residence, as in the carcass of the lion 

 slain by Samson, recorded in the fourteenth chapter 

 of Judges. The probability is the entrails had been 

 removed when it was slain, and owing to the peculiar 

 state of the atmosphere which prevails in that and 

 many other countries during the dry season, the car- 

 cass of an animal thus emboweled would become firm 

 and solid, without putrefaction taking place. 



In the year 1842, a swarm of bees took up their 

 abode in a frame church near my residence, entering 

 at a crack just above one of the windows, occupying 

 the space between the weatherboards and plastering. 

 This made a very commodious place, being about 

 three or four feet high by two feet Wide, between the 

 shedding, and four inches deep'. 



In 1858, a swarm entered a flue or chimney of a 

 brick house in Sacramento City, California, where it 

 remained and built a large amount of combs. The 

 owner of the house sold it the following spring for 

 fifty dollars, conditioned that the purchaser should 

 repair all damage done to the house by removing the 



