30

28 CHAPMAN'S HANDY-BOOK.

and the house key; but in default of the former, a tin
pail or a kettle will do; rattle them well together to
make the swarm settle. Whether this rough music has
any such effect, I cannot pretend to say; but it is a good
old custom,and can do no harm: I will presently tell
you what good it can do. The cloud of bees now darkens
in one particular direction. They will pitch on that
apple tree: no, farther off still; they are gathering upon
a gooseberry bush. The nucleus is formed; and, in a
few moments, by a sort of animal crystallization, all
the bees are deposited upon this point, and hang down
in a cluster like a bunch of grapes in shape. Thus ends
the first act of swarming, which is in fact the gathering
together of the body of emigrants at a common depot,
where they quietly remain, till some scouts whom they
send out, to look out for a place for them, return back
to the main body, and tell them that all is ready. Then
they rise, and not before; they no longer wheel round
and round, as though searching for a lighting place;
and the bee master who has not put his swarm into hive
before they start on this second course, has little chance
of ever calling them his own. He may follow them,
indeed, as I have done twice in my life for more than a
mile, but "twill generally be as fruitless as a wild
chase; for the bees rise higher and higher, and the last
he sees of them, as they are sailing away over the top of
the highest trees, is a thing like a thin but well defined
cloud as it is borne rapidly along by the breeze. But
the object of the bee master is to give the bees a hive
before the scouts return. Your hives should be at hand,
that there may be no hurry or delay when the time
comes for using them. If the swarm has settled on a
spot exposed to the direct rays of the sun, it is as well
to screen them by throwing a cloth over the bough, or
by any other shade which the place will allow you to
use. The mode of hiving bees will depend much upon
the place on which they have settled. It is well to
have a number of low shrubs planted near your bee
house, as, if the swarm light on a high tree, you will
have much additional trouble securing it. But there
is no place so awkward that a bee master need despair