In September or October, as the season is early or late, the bee master must begin to look out for swarms, if his stocks are in good condition. There is no sign, as far as I know, by which he can tell to a day or so when the _first_ swarm will rise; the after swarms give clearer signals. For this reason I said, that the first stock with which a bee master begins his apiary should be within sight of his door, or else he may chance to lose some of his early swarms; and this in the first year of its establishment will be no trifling loss to him. In after years, when he has from forty to fifty parent stocks, he may well afford a swarm or two for the department of the woods and forests, having, I suppose, by that time fully supplied all his private friends. Look at your hive in the quiet even when the work of the day is over: if the bees stand about the doorway, fanning with their wings, and pleased as it were with the prosperity of their large family,--if a pleasant and wholesome smell comes steaming from the mouth of the hive--and I know no smell so pleasant as that of a healthy beehive, unless it be a fine dairy of cows at milking time,--if you have seen a number of young bees on the lighting board for the last few days, (and you can tell them by their being at first covered with a greyish down, and quite damp, as they issue from the cell),--if, in fact, all be going on well with your hive in the month of October, look out for a swarm. Your children, if you are so fortunate as to have a fine swarm of them, will soon learn to stand sentry over the hives, and will take a pleasure in calling by their own names the swarms which they have seen rise. And now for the act of swarming itself. At some period of the day from ten o'clock till two, an unusual bustle is seen at the mouth of the hive :--single bees rush out in a hurried manner, and after running about for a minute or two on the lighting board, as though they were looking for something, and perhaps crawling up the front of the hive, enter in again. All work seems suspended for a time, at least no fresh labourers leave the hive to collect honey, although such as have completed their loads keep returning home, pushing their way through the crowd of loiterers who are blocking up the door. Now the confusion increases; keep your eyes fixed on the hive, and you will soon see a wonderful sight. A stream of live creatures begins to pour out, increasing in volume, until at last it is as wide as the doorway through which it passes: no longer do the bees run about in an irregular way, but each presses forward, each in his own place, walking steadily along, and making a peculiar sound with their wings which is heard at no other time. As the bees reach the end of the lighting board they take wing, and fly backwards and forwards, wheeling about as in a joyous dance, and waiting for their mates who are to follow. The stream has now flowed on for two or three minutes, and is still as dense as can be. Keep your eyes steadily fixed on the board, though it may chance to make you dizzy, just as when you look fixedly on a column of falling water, and you may perchance see the queen. There she is: besides other marks which are not so easily noticed, you may know her by this--her body is much longer than that