PRIMARY SWARM. 215 



necessity for the headlong haste practiced by some, which 

 increases their liability to be stung. Those who show so 

 little self-possession, must not be surprised, if they are stung 

 by the bees of other hives ; which, instead of being gorged 

 with honey, are on the alert, and very naturally mistake the 

 object of such excited demonstrations. The fact that the 

 bees have clustered, makes it almost certain, that, unless 

 the weather is very hot, or they are exposed to the burning 

 heat of the sun, they will not leave for at least one or two 

 hours. All convenient dispatch, however, should be used in 

 hiving a swarm, lest the scouts have time to return, — which 

 will entice them to go, — or lest other colonies issue, and 

 attempt to add themselves to it. 



420. Should you give the scouts time to return, you would 

 first see a few bees flying around the cluster. Slowly their 

 number would increase, till the whole swarm took wing, and 

 it would be almost useless to try to stop it, or to follow it. 

 When a swarm thus takes flight, it knows no bounds. 

 Hedges, fences, woods, walls, ditches, rivers, are barriers 

 only to the breathless and disappointed owner. The only 

 thing that we ever have known to stop a departing swarm 

 is throwing water among them. Flashing the sun's rays on 

 them by the use of a looking-glass is advised by some. We 

 tried it, but did not succeed in a single instance. 



421. As a matter of course, we suppose that the Apia- 

 rist has an empty hive in readiness, clean and cool. Bees, 

 when they swarm, being unnaturally heated, often refuse to 

 enter hives that have been standing in the sun, or at best 

 are slow in taking possession of them. The temperature of 

 the parent-stock, at the moment of swarming, rises very 

 suddenly, and many bees are often so drenched with per- 

 spiration, that they cannot take wing to join the emigrating 

 colony. To attempt to make swarming bees enter a heated 

 hive in a blazing sun, is, therefore, as irrational as it would 

 be to force a panting crowd of human beings into the suffo- 



