near the ground.

Another swarm in the neighborhood deserted their keeper and went into
the cornice of an out-house that stood amid evergreens in the rear of
a large mansion. But there is no accounting for the taste of bees,
as Samson found when he discovered the swarm in the carcass, or more
probably the skeleton, of the lion he had slain.

In any given locality, especially in the more wooded and mountainous
districts, the number of swarms that thus assert their independence
forms quite a large per cent. In the Northern States these swarms very
often perish before spring; but in such a country as Florida they seem
to multiply, till bee-trees are very common. In the West, also, wild
honey is often gathered in large quantities. I noticed not long since,
that some wood-choppers on the west slope of the Coast Range felled a
tree that had several pailfuls in it.

One night on the Potomac a party of us unwittingly made our camp near
the foot of a bee-tree, which next day the winds of heaven blew down,
for our special delectation, at least so we read the sign. Another time
while sitting by a waterfall in the leafless April woods I discovered
a swarm in the top of a large hickory. I had the season before remarked
the tree as a likely place for bees, but the screen of leaves concealed
them from me. This time my former presentiment occurred to me, and,
looking sharply, sure enough there were the bees, going out and in a
large, irregular opening. In June a violent tempest of wind and rain
demolished the tree, and the honey was all lost in the creek into which
it fell. I happened along that way two or three days after the tornado,
when I saw a remnant of the swarm, those, doubtless, that escaped the
flood and those that were away when the disaster came, hanging in a
small black mass to a branch high up near where their home used to be.
They looked forlorn enough. If the queen was saved the remnant probably
sought another tree; otherwise the bees have soon died.

I have seen bees desert their hive in the spring when it was infested
with worms, or when the honey was exhausted; at such times the swarm
seems to wander aimlessly, alighting here and there, and perhaps in the
end uniting with some other colony. In case of such union, it would be
curious to know if negotiations were first opened between the parties,
and if the houseless bees are admitted at once to all the rights and
franchises of their benefactors. It would be very li