That every new
swarm contemplates migrating to the woods, seems confirmed by the fact
that they will only come out when the weather is favorable to such an
enterprise, and that a passing cloud or a sudden wind, after the bees
are in the air, will usually drive them back into the parent hive. Or
an attack upon them with sand or gravel, or loose earth or water, will
quickly cause them to change their plans. I would not even say but
that, when the bees are going off, the apparently absurd practice, now
entirely discredited by regular bee-keepers but still resorted to by
unscientific folk, of beating upon tin pans, blowing horns, and creating
an uproar generally, might not be without good results. Certainly not by
drowning the "orders" of the queen, but by impressing the bees as
with some unusual commotion in nature. Bees are easily alarmed and
disconcerted, and I have known runaway swarms to be brought down by a
farmer ploughing in the field who showered them with handfuls of loose
soil.

I love to see a swarm go off--if it is not mine, and if mine must go I
want to be on hand to see the fun. It is a return to first principles
again by a very direct route. The past season I witnessed two such
escapes. One swarm had come out the day before, and, without alighting,
had returned to the parent hive--some hitch in the plan, perhaps, or may
be the queen had found her wings too weak. The next day they came out
again, and were hived. But something offended them, or else the tree in
the woods--perhaps some royal old maple or birch holding its head
high above all others, with snug, spacious, irregular chambers and
galleries--had too many attractions; for they were presently discovered
filling the air over the garden, and whirling excitedly around.
Gradually they began to drift over the street; a moment more, and they
had become separated from the other bees, and, drawing together in a
more compact mass or cloud, away they went, a humming, flying vortex of
bees, the queen in the centre, and the swarm revolving around her as a
pivot,--over meadows, across creeks and swamps, straight for the heart
of the mountain, about a mile distant,--slow at first, so that the youth
who gave chase kept up with them, but increasing their speed till only a
fox hound could have kept them in sight. I saw their pursuer laboring
up the side of the mountain; saw his white shirt-sleeves gleam as he
entered the woods; but he returned a few hours afterward w