Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/97

Rh evinced any interest in human beings, except when they obstruct the bee-path. However, most of our ancient customs were founded in utility, and it is not likely that this traditional pandemonium would have been practised for centuries without some reason. Mr. Root, who thinks before he speaks, suggests that the swarm follows the queen and the scouts through listening to their song, that of the queen being easily distinguished from the hum of the workers when on the wing; and that it is quite possible, therefore, that the noise, if loud enough to drown the voice of the queen, would cause confusion on the part of the flying bees and a consequent settling. But from what we remember of our own early experience, we are convinced that the bees were less confused by the noise than were the people engaged in making it.

The next most widely practised of the ancient methods is that of throwing dirt on the swarm to stop it; this certainly is efficacious if there happens to be enough loose earth at hand. However, throwing dirt is a reactionary performance in the physical as well as the moral sense; and usually the bee-keeper who throws dirt at a soaring swarm must needs stop soon to get the motes out of his own eyes before he is able to see where the swarm has alighted.

In these enlightened days everyone who has a cherry tree or an apple tree, a currant bush or a potato patch, is sure to have a fountain pump of some sort; and never is this instrument a greater boon than when it throws a fine spray upon an absconding swarm of bees. It brings them to a stop