with one
hand, be shaken, so that they may gently fall into a basket held under
them, by the other. If the basket is sufficiently open to admit the air
freely, and not so open as to allow the bees to get through the sides,
it will answer all the better. The bees should now be carried very
slowly to their new home, and be gently shaken, or poured out, on the
sheet, in front of it. If they seem at all reluctant to enter, take up a
few of them in a large spoon, (a cup will answer equally well,) and
shake them close to the entrance. As they go in, they will fan with
their wings, and raise a peculiar note, which communicates the joyful
news that they have found a home, to the rest of their companions; and
in a short time, the whole swarm will enter, and they are thus safely
hived, without injury to a single bee. When bees are once shaken down on
the sheet, the great mass of them are very unwilling to take wing again;
for they are loaded with honey, and like heavily armed troops, they
desire to march slowly and sedately to the place of encampment. If the
sheet hangs in folds, or is not stretched out, so as to present an
uninterrupted surface, they are often greatly confused, and take a long
time to find the entrance to the hive. If it is desired to have them
enter sooner than they are sometimes inclined to do, they may be gently
separated, with a feather, or leafy twig, when they cluster in bunches
on the sheet. On first shaking them down into the basket, multitudes
will again take wing, and multitudes more will be left on the tree, but
they will speedily form a line of communication with those on the sheet,
and enter the hive with them; for many of them will follow the Apiarian,
as he slowly carries the basket to the hive.

It sometimes happens that the queen is left on the tree: in this case,
the bees will either refuse to enter the hive, or if they go in, will
speedily come out, and all take wing again, to join their queen. This
happens much more frequently in the case of after-swarms, whose young
queens, instead of exhibiting the gravity of the old matron, are apt to
be constantly flying about, and frisking in the air. When the bees
cluster again on the tree, the process of hiving must be repeated.

If the Apiarian has a pair of sharp pruning-shears, and the limb on
which the bees have clustered, is of no value, and so small, that it can
be cut without jarring them off, this may be done, and the bees carried
on it and t