Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/99

Rh If the bees alight high in a tree, then our methods have been to get at them by climbing the tree, or attaining the branch by the use of a ladder. However, I doubt if there was ever a fruit found on any tree that needs quite so much care in the picking as does this; and it is decidedly a ticklish performance to clamber down a tree holding gingerly a branch laden with a swarm of bees in one hand and clutching at supporting branches with the other. Sometimes the bees are not accommodating enough to alight on the end of a branch that may be cut off. They may even go so far as to cluster on the large branch itself; then there is nothing to do but to brush them off in a box with a bee brush, a performance which they object to; or to dip them off with a tin dipper, or to jar them into a basket, and then to dump them out in front of the hive. The most embarrassing situation of all is when the swarm clusters on a tree trunk. Squaring the circle is not a much more difficult feat mathematically than to brush all the bees into a square box from this cylindrical position. It is usually necessary to bring the smoker to help in elucidating this problem; for, paradoxical as it may seem, smoke properly applied clears up many a situation in the bee business.

If only one were able to find the queen in the clustering swarm and secure her by placing her in the hive, the work would be easy, for the other bees would soon follow. But to hunt for the queen in the clustering swarm is, for most of us, quite like hunting for the traditional needle in the haystack;