SWARMING AND HIVING. 
115 
ping them, is to flash the sun’s rays among them, by a 
looking-glass ! I never had occasion to try it, but an 
anonymous writer says he never knew it fail. If forcibly 
prevented from eloping, they will be almost sure to leave, 
soon after hiving, for their selected home, unless the queen 
is confined. If there is reason to expect desertion, and 
the queen cannot be confined, the bees may be carried 
into the cellar, and kept in total darkness, until towards 
sunset of the third day, being supplied, in the mean time, 
with water and honey to build their combs. The same 
precautions must be used when fhgitive swarms are re- 
hived. 
It is always very easy to prevent a new colony from 
abandoning the movable-comb hive, by regulating the 
entrance so that, while a loaded worker-bee can just 
pass, the queen will be unable to leave ; or a piece of 
comb, with unsealed worker-brood, may be transferred to 
the new hive, when a swarm will seldom forsake it. 
It may generally be ascertained, soon after hiving a 
swarm, whether or not it intends to remain. If, on ap- 
plying the ear to the side of the hive, a sound be heard, 
as of gnawing or rubbing, the bees are getting ready for 
comb-building, and will rarely decamp. 
If a colony decide to go, they look upon the hive in 
which they are put as only a temporary stopping-place, 
and seldom trouble themselves to build any comb. If the 
hive permits inspection, wo may tell at a glance when 
hees are disgusted with their new residence, and mean to 
forsake it. They not only refuse to work with the char- 
acteristic energy of a new swarm, but their very attitude, 
hanging, as they do, with a sort of dogged or supercili- 
ous air, as though they hated even so much as to touch 
their detested abode, proclaims to the experienced eye, 
that they are unwilling tenants, and mean to be olf as soon 
