HIVING THE BEES
Bert Bobbsey did not understand what Sam Porter’s excitement was all
about. But he could tell, by the way Sam acted and by the way he
called, that it was something serious. So he dropped his fish and his
pole and made ready to follow his new chum.
“Come on! Come on!” called Sam, peering out from his shelter in the
bushes, as he saw that Bert was not hurrying as much as he might. “Run
for it, if you don’t want to get stung!”
“Stung!” exclaimed Bert.
“Yep,” answered the country lad. “Don’t you see? That’s a bunch of bees
with the queen bee in the middle, and they’re looking for a place to
settle so they can start a new home. I only hope they don’t ’light on
this bush,” he added, as Bert crawled in the shelter with him. “If they
do--oh, boy! Look out for yourself! The best thing to do will be to
leg it for the creek and jump in. Just let your nose stick out--that’s
all! I hope they don’t decide to settle here where we are!”
But the swarm of humming, busy little insects, following their queen,
suddenly turned and made for a tree not far away. There the bees
clustered in a bunch on one of the low branches.
“That’s good!” cried Sam. “Mr. Watson can easily get them from there.
Come on, we’ll go tell him!”
The boys picked up their fish and their poles, and soon they were at
Cloverbank.
“Oh, what a fine lot of fish!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey as she saw the
two boys with their strings.
“Yes, they’re good fish,” Bert said. “But will you take them, please,
Nan. I have to go with Sam and tell Mr. Watson about his swarm of bees.”
“What’s this about the bees?” Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to know. The boys,
taking turns, quickly told her, and Bert added:
“I’m going to watch Mr. Watson catch them.”
“Oh, so am I!” cried Freddie.
Nan hurried back to the farmhouse with the two strings of fish, which
were to be put in the cool cellar until needed. Sam said he would come
back and get his after the bees were caught.
“So some of my bees got away, did they?” asked Mr. Watson when he
had been told the news. He was about to set out for another of his
orchards where peaches were being picked, but when he heard about his
honey-makers he decided to postpone his orchard trip.
Followed by the Bobbsey twins, their mother and Sam, Mr. Watson hurried
to the little valley where he kept about a hundred hives of bees. Like
little dog-houses the hives were, only with flat instead of peaked
roofs, and of course only a small slit was needed in the bottom of each
hive-house to let the bees fly in and out. The hives stood in rows in
an orchard of apple trees near a small garden. There was a farmhouse in
this valley in which lived a man and his wife who looked after the bees.
“I had three swarms out to-day,” called Jason Stern, the bee-keeper, to
Mr. Watson when the latter arrived. “I couldn’t get them all. One got
away.”
“I know where it is,” the peach-grower answered. “Bert and Sam saw the
swarm alight when they were coming back from fishing. I’ll take an
empty hive on the small hand-cart and bring them back. You’d better
come along to help--that is, if you have the other swarms safe.”
“Yes, they’re all right except the one that got away,” said Mr. Stern.
While the Bobbsey twins watched, Mr. Watson and the bee-keeper put
rubber gloves on their hands and on their heads big straw hats, the
brim of which held the mosquito netting veil away from their faces
so no bee could get near them. They also tied down the legs of their
trousers.
“For sometimes a bee or two will crawl up your pants, and it isn’t very
pleasant,” said Jason Stern, with a laugh.
Then a two-wheeled cart with a flat wooden platform was brought out of
the barn and the party set off.
They presently came in view of the tree on which the swarm had
alighted. The cluster of bees was like a big football, and somewhat
similar in shape. A low, buzzing sound could be heard.
“Better not come any closer with the children,” advised the farmer to
Mrs. Bobbsey. “A stray bee or two might sting them. You can watch Jason
and me from here.”
The mother of the twins, and in fact the twins themselves, as well as
Sam, did not care to go too near. So they sat down on a grassy hillock
while the two men wheeled the cart close under the tree. On the cart
was an empty beehive, one of many kept ready for just such occasions
as this. Also, Mr. Stern had brought with him a “smoker,” which was
something like a tin funnel with a little leather bellows beneath it.
When this bellows was pumped, clouds of smoke were sent out of the
small end of the funnel. Directed against the swarm of bees, the smoke
quieted them so they would not sting those who handled them.
The cart, with the open empty hive on it, was wheeled up until it was
directly under the branch on which hung the clustering bees around
their queen.
“You hold the cart steady now, Jason,” directed Mr. Watson, “and I’ll
climb up in the tree and jar them off. As soon as most of them are
inside the hive, clap the cover on.”
“All right,” was the answer.
“I wonder what would happen,” said Bert, “if the cluster of bees and
their queen should fall on Mr. Stern’s head instead of in the empty
hive.”
“It wouldn’t be very pleasant,” his mother answered. “Though I guess,
with the veils, the men won’t get stung. But watch now, children, and
see them hive the runaway bees.”
“Jason, are you all ready down there?” called Mr. Watson to his
bee-man, when the farmer himself was up in the tree.
“All ready,” was the answer. “Shake ’em down!”