Year: 1867

ling narrative:


In June, 1854, Mr.. Simmonds


a farmer, residing at Brooklands
Farms, Weybridge, was dressing
in order to attend a rent audit al


Woodburn House. Before put
ting on his coat he perceived from


his window an unusually large


swarm of bees, filling the air with


their cloud and noise. 1t was, in


fact, as he afterwards ascertained,


two swarms that had come out of


two distinct hives, and had united


in the air. He ran out in his


shirt sleeves, and without his hat,


to see where they should alight.


The bees, after making some cir.
cles in the air, led him off to the


River Wey.


Thinking that the bees might
cross the river and escape, he
adopted a plan not common to the
bee master, namely, that of throw
ing dust into the air among the
ices. This often makes them
settle quickly. They did settle
quickly, and this more so than he
expected, for in a short time the
whole of one of the largest swarms
he had ever seen settled upon his
head, face and breast. They hung
down in front like a great beard
to the bottom of his waistcoat.
Had he not been accustomed to
bees, and perfectly collected, his
situation would have been a very
dangerous one; for had he at all
irritated this mass of armed in
sects, he would have no doubt
received a sufficient number of
stings to have placed his life in
peril.


He was obliged to close his
eyes slowly and keep his mouth
shut. Then in order to prevent
their entering his nostrils, which
they endeavored to do, he slowly
thrust one hand through the mass
and with his two forefngers man
aged to keep drawing and pushing
them away from his nostrils as
they tried to enter, he breathing
all the while as softly as possible.
This was necessary, as bees are
generally irritated by being breath
ed upon. He then began to con-
slider what course he should take.
He was some distance from his
house, and no one near him nor
within call. His first thought
was to walk slowly into the river
Wey, and gently sink his head
under the water, and then throw
off the swarm. But a moments
consideration dissuaded him from
the attempted remedy.


He could not have disengaged
them for many were between his
neck-cloth and his skin, and still
more were crawling down his
back. He found that if he walk
ed he could not help disturbing
the hanging mass, and that every
little agitation, however slight,
caused hum and a hiss from
some thousands. He then remem-
bered an account given in Thor
ley's work on bees, of a swarm
settling on the face and neck of
a servant maid, who escaped un-
hurt by the care and advice of
her master, he, without irritating
the swarm, having hived it from
off her with a hive well smeared
with honey.


To avoid agitating the swarm
Mr.. Simmonds slowly knelt down
on the grass and remained perfect
Iv still. He then found that a
number of bees were gathering
in a mass under the waistband of
his trousers, in the hollow of his
back, to which spot the others
were drawing, indicating that the
queen was there. Fearing, there
fore, that the tightness of the
waistband--rendered tighterwhen-
ever he breathed--might crush,
or, at any rate, irritate this part
of the swarm, he slowly unbntton-
ed the front of his trowsers.


1t was not easy to conceive Q
more helpless condition than that
to which Mr.. Simmonds was now
reduced. He that was master OF
forty hives, from which he could
levy what spoils he pleas