clustering begins to rise
higher and higher in the air, and evidently means to depart, not a
moment is to be lost: instead of empty noises, he must resort to means
much more effective to stay their vagrant propensities. Handfulls of
dirt cast into the air, or water thrown among them, will often so
disorganize them as to compel them to alight. Of all devices for
stopping them, the most original one that I have ever heard of, is to
flash the sun's rays among them, by the use of a looking glass! I have
never had occasion to try it, but the anonymous writer who recommends
it, says that he never knew it to fail. If they are forcibly prevented
from eloping, then special care must be taken or they will be almost
sure soon after hiving, to leave for their selected home. The queen
should be caught and confined for several days in a way which will be
subsequently described. The same caution must be exercised, when new
swarms abandon their hive. If the queen cannot be caught, and there is
reason to dread a desertion, the bees may be carried into the cellar,
and confined in total darkness, until towards sun-set of the third day
after they swarmed, being supplied in the mean time with water and honey
to build their combs.

If a colony decides 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 in it. If the hive is so constructed as to permit
inspection, I can tell by a glance whether bees are disgusted with their
new residence, and mean before long to clear out. They not only refuse
to work with that energy so characteristic of a new swarm, but they have
a peculiar look which to the experienced eye at once proclaims the fact
that they are staying only upon sufferance. Their very attitude, hanging
as they do with a sort of dogged or supercilious air, as though they
hated even so much as to touch their detested abode, is equivalent to an
open proclamation that they mean to be off. My numerous experiments in
attempting from the moment of hiving, to make the bees work in observing
hives exposed to the full light of day, instead of keeping them as I now
do in darkness for several days, have made me quite familiar with all
their graceless, do-nothing proceedings before their departure. Bees
sometimes abandon their hives very early in the Spring, or late in
Summer or Fall. They exhibit all the appearance of natural swarming; but
they leave, not because th