.DIVIDING SWARMS. 59 
where it is intended to remain. Those that are still flying 
about will return to the parent stock. But if they are left 
sitting where they are hived all night, and then removed, a 
great number of the bees will have marked their locality, like 
a colony in the spring of the year, and when they fly out the 
next day they will come back to the old stand, and be lost 
instead of returning to their old home. Shade the hive well 
at least for a few days. If water is thrown on the hive oc- 
casionally, the evaporation from the hive will cool it and make 
it agreeable. 
A gentleman who had agreed to furnish his first swarm to 
his neighbor, had another to come out at the same time and 
settle with it; be disliked to sell them both for the price of 
one, so he ran them both into a large hive and left them sit- 
ting in the sun, whilst he came eight miles for me to divide 
them. When he returned, the bees had become overheated 
and had left for — he knew not where. If a swarm begins to 
return to the hive without clustering, the old hive might be 
set away or closed, and a new one set on its stand for them 
to enter. Look on the ground for the queen, which has most 
likely dropped down, and put her with them. When the bees 
commence clustering in some undesirable place, I take a hand- 
ful of leafy branches and hold them in my hand immediately 
over the cluster. I have sometimes used a clump of dead 
mullin tops tied together to resemble a swarm of bees, to have 
the swarm settle on it. As they are all the time inclined to work 
upwards in clustering, take a handful or two gently from the 
cluster and place them on the swarming bush in your hand, to 
form a nucleus to which Ihc rest will be inclined to unite. 
Then stir the bees below with a quill or bfciuch, or what is 
less likely to anger them, a little smoke held immediately un- 
der them will make them move ; when on the bush they can 
be carried to the hive. If a few are inclined to cluster on 
the branch after the main portiou of the swarm has been re- 
moved, they could be collected in this way and taken to the 
hive; or hold the branch to one side, or shake it until the 
bees are attracted by the sound in the hive and enter it. To 
place a smoking rag on the place where bees persist in clust- 
ering, or rub the parts with catnip, wormwood, or other bitter 
herbs, will make them less inclined to light there. They will 
sometimes persist in clustering where the queen has been. A 
lady, at a fair where I was playing with a colony of bees, was 
