30 FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY 



I got back to the place, however, I found that 

 he had not succeeded in getting all the bees in, 

 and, not daring to lift the skep down to see if the 

 queen was in, no great progress had been made. 

 I had only just taken the smoker from him with 

 the idea of driving them in more quickly, when 

 the swarm began to rise, and in a few moments 

 was in the air. I tried by squirting water on them 

 to induce them to settle again, but it was of no 

 avail, so the only thing I could do was to follow 

 them. They went slowly at first, but kept in 

 a perfectly straight line, and after a time increased 

 the pace, so that I had much ado to keep them 

 in sight. Altogether they went about half a mile, 

 and when I actually came up with them, they 

 were hiving themselves in an empty hive fitted 

 with combs in a garden. 



Now, I think it would have been a most 

 extraordinary coincidence if they had happened 

 to have discovered this very suitable hive, such 

 a long distance away, in the very short time 

 following their issue from the hive. I remember 

 another case which was related to me of a 

 swarm which had only been on its bough a few 

 moments when the bee-keeper captured it and 

 placed it in a bar-frame hive. He had no sooner 

 hived it, however, than the swarm flew out and 

 made straight for a hole in a tree in his garden. 

 He had to procure a ladder to get them, and by 

 the time he had done that they were safely 



