or cluster; and not then until they have sent off an embassy
to search out a place for their future residence. Now if the bees are
hived immediately after they have alighted, before they send off their
embassy to seek a new tenement, they will never fly away, admitting they
have sufficient room, (for it is want of room that makes them swarm in the
first place,) and their hive is clear of every thing that is offensive to
them.

The old custom of washing hives with salt and water and other substances,
to give them a pleasant effluvia, should be speedily abolished. Nothing
but bees should ever be put into a hive.

When bees die, the hive should be cleared of its contents, and scraped out
clean, and the chamber rubbed with cloth wet in clean water; then set it
in its place in the apiary, and there let it stand until wanted for use.
An old hive, thus prepared, is as good as a new one for the reception of a
swarm. The apiarian should examine before using to see that the hive is
free from spiders and cobwebs.

When bees are not hived immediately after they have clustered in a body,
they should be removed to the apiary, or several rods from the place where
they alighted, as soon as they can be hived, to prevent their being found
on the return of the embassy. Since I have thus practised, I have never
lost a swarm by flight.

Experience has taught that it is best to remove the new swarm to the place
where it is intended to stand during the season, immediately after hiving.
Fewer bees are lost by a speedy removal, than when permitted to stand
until evening, because they are creatures of habit, and are every moment
establishing themselves in their location. It also prevents their being
found by the embassy when they return. The longer bees stand in the place
where they are hived, the greater will be the number lost when removed.
But more of this hereafter.

When bees are collected in drawers for the purpose of equalizing colonies,
by doubling, &c., they should be permitted to stand until evening before
they are united, it being a more favorable time for them to become
acquainted with each other by degrees; and the scent of the bees in the
lower apartment will enter through the apertures during the night so much
that there is a greater degree of sameness in the peculiar smell of the
two colonies, which takes off their animosity, if they chance to have
any.

No confusion or noise which is uncommon to the bees should ever be ma