50 
FOLLOWING THE BEE LINE 
“They may. . . . But you can never tell! 
. . . I’ll come though, anyway!” 
An inward groan, as I hung up the receiver, 
snatched up my bee-veil and my little tin smoker— 
the beekeeper’s best friend—in which I burned old 
burlap, giving a cool, thick smoke. 
Sometimes the telephone caller would only want 
to get rid of the bees, and in that case, if I needed 
more colonies in my apiary, I was always glad to 
take them. 
There are few sights in nature more thrilling than 
that of a swarm, when twenty or thirty thousand 
bees burst from their hive and whirl in a dense black 
cloud through the air, alighting on a limb or a 
fence post or any convenient “hanging-out” place, 
till they have fully decided on their future home. 
Then is the time to secure them, for the next time 
they take wing they will go in a straight “bee-line” 
to their destination, often a mile or so away. To 
reach them it may be necessary to climb an old 
apple tree or put a ladder against the side of a barn 
and mount to the very eaves in order to shake or 
brush the bees off into a box or pail. 
The swarm hangs in a big, warm, cone-shaped 
mass most wonderful to see and touch. Full of 
honey and in such a sublime sort of intoxication are 
