158 SWARMING AND HIVING. 



time, the whole swarm will enter, without injury to a single ] 

 bee. When bees are once shaken down on the sheet, the 

 great mass of them are very unwilling to take wing again ; 

 for they are loaded with honey, and like heavily armed 

 troops, they desire to march slowly and sedately to the place 

 of encampment. If the sheet hangs in folds, or is not 

 stretched out, so as to present an uninterrupted surface, they 

 are often greatly confused, and take a long time to find the 

 entrance to the hive. If it is desired to have them enter 

 sooner than they are sometimes inclined to do, they may be 

 gently separated, with a feather, or leafy twig, when they 

 gather in bunches on the sheet ; or better still, they may be 

 gently " spooned up " and emptied out before the entrance 

 of the hive. If they cluster in the portico of my hive, they 

 should be treated in the same way. ' 



; On first shaking them down into the basket, some will 

 /again take wing, and others will be left on the tree, but if 

 the Queen has been secured, they will speedily form a line 

 of communication with those on the sheet, and enter the 

 hive with them. It sometimes happens that the Queen is left 

 on the tree : in this case, the bees will either refuse to enter 

 the hive, or if they go in, will speedily come out, and all 

 take wing again, to join their Queen. This happens much 

 more frequently in the case of after-swarms, whose young 

 Queens, instead of exhibiting the gravity of the old matron, 

 are apt to be constantly flying about and frisking in the air. 

 When the bees forsake the hive and cluster again on they 

 tree, the process of hiving must be repeated. 



If the Apiarian has a pair of sharp pruning-shears, and 

 the limb on which the bees have clustered, is of no value, 

 and so small, that it can be cut without jarring them off, this 

 may be done, and the bees carried on it and then shaken off 

 on the sheet. 



