130 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
heading towards the opening. Singularly, no writers 
mention what I have always observed — viz., if the 
queen be within, bees continually issue from the 
skep, running from fanner to fanner, in alternate 
diagonals, giving each one two quick taps with the 
antennae, which seems to me to convey: “All right, 
keep it up ; mother’s at home, but she’s terribly 
hot.” The fanners, thus encouraged, do not relax their 
exertions for a moment. 
If, instead of these assuring indications, the bees 
within the skep are apparently disquieted, and begin to 
leave it in numbers, the fanners also, lacking infor- 
mation, impatiently stopping their work, and running 
about, whilst the mass on the bough is comparatively 
tranquil, and evidently increasing in bulk, we may be 
pretty sure that the queen is not in our party, and 
that the previously-described operation will have to 
be repeated, for, ere long, the bees will desert our 
skep and join their comrades who have the queen 
in their keeping. We may, in this case, often save 
ourselves trouble by at once re-hiving the residue 
as at first, in anything at hand — e.g.^ a big flower-pot 
or pail (my hat has been pressed into the service 
more than once) — and adding the second lot to the 
first, by pouring or shaking it out against the opening 
beneath the skep ; but excessive meddling must be 
avoided, as bees under constant disturbance are 
unable themselves to ascertain the whereabouts of 
the queen, the spread of information on this point 
through a swarm requiring several minutes at least. 
Hiving under the circumstances described is a 
most simple matter, the operation itself being but the 
