HUNTING AND HIVING WILD BEES.’ i 
obstructed by trees or other objects, to more perfectly 
line them. Of course new comers are constantly arriving, 
and these latter will fill the air with their spiral curvings ; 
but a little practice will enable the hunter’s eye to catch 
those whose flight will now be straight for home, without 
more than a part of a single circle, while even those 
striking spirals (if it be not windy), will evidently lean 
toward home, or circle from the combs in that direction. 
Many different swarms are often thus set at work from 
the same spot at once, sometimes causing much vexation. 
This will at once be known by constant quarreling. If, now, 
we desire to divide them and get rid of all but those which 
go in a direction indicating that they are probably wild, 
we have only to place a box supplied with clean honey- 
comb, and a little honey in the cells, in the spot from 
which the bees have been working, removing all other 
comb, and after the bees have collected therein, close them 
in with a cover, and carry them in the direction where we 
suppose the swarm to be, and as nearly to the spot as we 
can guess, If we diverge a little out of the line, and 
yet, when we set them again at work, be considerably 
nearer the swarm we are in quest of, while we are 
farther off from the others, we shall pretty effectually di- 
vide them. But we must not move too far at a time, for 
if we chance to go beyond the tree, our bees will not be 
likely to return. If we have chosen the right spot, we 
shall now probably get a “ cross-line,” and by following 
both lines accurately to the point where the one crosses the other, 
we shall be in their immediate neighborhood. If left to 
themselves, one swarm only will be at work after two or 
three hours, usually the nearest and hungriest swarm driv- 
ing the others off. Hence not the best, but the poorest 
and least valuable, is often found it we do not divide them. 
Since it often happens that a hungry and more distant 
