35 
me snes their appearance announces a new people or 
amily. 
2d. When the bees are so numerous, that they cannot 
all find room in the hive. : 
3d. When, in the evening or night, a great buzzing is 
heard in the hive. 
4th. The most unequivocal sign is, when the working 
bees or neuters, do not go abroad, in as great numbers as 
usual; and when they remain on the bench, charged with 
their load, without going into the hive. 
Then a hot blaze of sunshine, succeeding a cloud, and a 
few drops of rain, occasions an insupportable heat in the 
hive, and the bees hasten to abandon it: Then the buzzing, 
which was great in the evening, and still increasing, is suc- 
ceeded, for an instant, by a profound silence. In less than 
a minute, all the bees which are to compose the swarm, 
defile rapidly from the hive, and disperse in the air, where 
they are seen bounding like fleeces of snow. Sometimes 
the bees, when swarming, rise very high, especially if. it 
be windy. ‘They then, sometimes, rise out of sight. They 
may generally be arrested, by throwing sand or dust on 
them, or more certainly by throwing water, which sprinkles - 
them like rain. A few discharges of a musket has the effect 
to make them fear an approaching storm. I have had occa- 
sion to try the two last methods with success. 
When bees remain engrouped, or clustered to the 
bench, several days in succession, M. Ducarne de Blangis 
points out a method to determine their departure. He raised 
the hive three inches above the bench, and left it in that 
situation some days. The bees ceased to cluster. He after- 
wards, in a warm day, let the hive down suddenly on the 
bench. ‘This produced such a sudden and excessive heat 
in the hive, that the swarm determined to abandon it. 
There is another expedient, no less simple, used in the 
country. It is to place, in the night, young elder branches, 
with the leaves. on, round the bench where the bees are 
grouped. The smell of the elder forces them into the hive; 
and the first warm day afterwards, the swarm, incommoded 
by the interior heat, abandon the hive and take their de- 
parture. 
Swarms return to the panniers or hives whence they 
came out, if at the time of swarming they lose their queen. 
‘This sometimes happens, when a queen is too feeble to ac- 
company her colony, and has strayed or perished. ‘The 
