This way and that way they drift,
now contracting, now expanding, rising, sinking, growing thick about
some branch or bush, then dispersing and massing at some other point,
till finally they begin to alight in earnest, when in a few moments the
whole swarm is collected upon the branch, forming a bunch perhaps as
large as a two-gallon measure. Here they will hang from one to three
or four hours, or until a suitable tree in the woods is looked up,
when, if they have not been offered a hive in the mean time, they are
up and off. In hiving them, if any accident happens to the queen the
enterprise miscarries at once. One day I shook a swarm from a small
pear-tree into a tin pan, set the pan down on a shawl spread beneath
the tree, and put the hive over it. The bees presently all crawled up
into it, and all seemed to go well for ten or fifteen minutes, when I
observed that something was wrong; the bees began to buzz excitedly and
to rush about in a bewildered manner, then they took to the wing and
all returned to the parent stock.
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