THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
181 
is once lighted, so that the amateur may not 
find it dead out when he most needs it, I was 
anxious to get into the way of its use. It was 
not until I bad burnt my fingers pretty severely 
again and again that I learnt to remember that 
the tin was hot, but the wood was not, and so 
to take hold of the bellows. I found a bit of 
stringy bark, pulled fine like flax, auswer as 
well as anything, so I got a bundle and put it on 
the shelf in the honey house. 
But I must not forget one thing more I 
prepared for the coming event. I noticed in the 
ABO Guide the woodcut of a swarming box, 
with a long handle, the box being pierced with 
holes all over, so that the swarm being shaken 
into it, as it was held up under the branch, 
would take to it at once, and begin to crawl in 
and out of the holes. Well I set to work with 
the thin wood of a kerosene case, and made this 
swarming box, and had it all ready. 
I did not forget to provide a large sheet of 
brown paper, and considered myself fortunate 
in getting a waterproof sheet, so that it was 
stronger than ordinary paper. This of course 
was to dump the bees upon when I had them in 
my long-handled hiving box. 
I had pretty well got by beart the instructions 
given in the books, which were somewhat to 
this effect — “ When the swarm has settled on a 
branch, take your hiving box, hold it up close 
underneath, give the branch a sharp shock, and 
the swarm will fall into your box ; then carry 
it to the empty hive, in front of which have 
your sheet spread in such a way that the bees 
dumped upon it can easily run in. If they are 
reluctant to move give them a puff of smoke, 
and that will quicken their pace, and if the 
front of the hive is raised by a couple of little 
wedges, about half an inch or so, they will soon 
begin to ; stream in. When they are in, cover 
your hive with a sheet, let the bees settle, and 
they will as a rule give you little or uo more 
trouble.” This, at any rate, was how I got hold 
of the gist of the matter from reading, for up to 
this time I had had little or no experience with 
bees, except indeed on three not to be forgotten 
occasions, the first two being wheu I was a 
boy. Boys are cruel scamps, and though I am 
a parson I was not a whit better than the 
rest. 
We used in those old days to catch a bee, 
extract the sting, then take out the honey bag 
and enjoy the sweet nectar. On one occasion I 
placed the sting, which I had squeezed out and 
removed from its sheath, with nothing but the 
root attached t o it on its side on the back of my 
hand, and immediately before my eyes it turned 
up and went into the flesh, as if it had been 
driven by the bee, and stung me. 
I mentioned it to the boys, who were with me 
at the time, and wanted to try it upon them, but 
they did not see it, and I have never ventured 
upon the experiment with myself since that 
time. 
The next experience was a sting on the tip of 
the tongue, while I and one or two more were 
eating the tit bits ot comb honey as a bigger boy 
was getting it from a hollow log, after having 
smothered the swarm with sulphur fumes. 
And the third was a severe sting on the eye 
by au angry little worker, whose home I had 
disturbed iu the winter in a neighbour’s garden, 
for as the few bees I found in the cold weather 
were torpid, I concluded there were none in 
the hive, and so boldly approached and un- 
covered it in the summer, with the painful 
result already mentioned. 
Well having everything ready, and after many 
false promises upon the part of my colony hived 
in the brandy case, one hot day, about noon, as 
I was talking with the verger of the church up 
by the honey house, out came the swarm I had 
been expecting so long. Out they came iu a con- 
tinuous stream, and went circling and buzzing 
round and round, and at last to our great 
delight they settled upon the branch of a 
neighboring pear tree, about ten feet from the 
ground, hanging in a wedge-shaped mass. 
I soon had my paper sheet spread in front of 
the hive, and got a big step ladder I bad handy, 
and placed underneath the tree. In my excite- 
ment I did not put on my hat, veil, and gloves, 
but remembered to get my smoker ready, and 
my hiving box out. 
The Verger who had plenty of nerve, got up 
the ladder to shake the branch while I held the 
long-handled box. While doing this a bee lit on 
my face, but I thought it best to take no notice, 
so it quietly crawled all over my face until it 
had satisfied its curiosity, and completed its in- 
vestigations, and then went off without doing 
any stinging. The Verger only got one sting 
while detaching some portion of the clump with 
bis finger, and 1 got none. 
Having shaken the bulk of the swarm into my 
hiving box, I carried them off to the hive and 
dumped them on to the paper in front, and as 
they were rather slow to move in the right 
direction, viz. : — towards the entrance. I gave 
them a puff or two with my smoker, when, to 
my great disappointment, they all rose in a body 
and flew back to the pear tree again. I then 
noticed for the first time that I had forgotten to 
put the little wedges in to raise the entrance 
half an inch or more. I remedied this at once, 
and then got a saw and a large crumb cloth 
which I used to keep the dust off the buggy, 
j So we set quietly to work and sawed off the 
branch below where the swarm hung on, and 
carried it and placed it on the paper in front of 
the hive, covering it, hive and all, with the 
crumb cloth. I presently started the bees with 
a puff or two of smoke, and they soon began to 
run in, so that in about an hour or an hour and 
a half they were all safely hived, and I was able 
to remove the cloth. 
I had, according to directions, put a sheet of 
brown paper over the frames topervent the bees 
coming up and building in the roof. Ac the end 
of six days 1 examined my new swarm. I found 
they had eaten a hole through the paper about 
two inches long and half an inch wide, but had 
not built above, having set to work upon two 
frames in the right-hand corner of the hive as I 
stood over it from behind. 1 nut a thin sacking 
