To return to our imprisoned bees. Beginning at the top, or what is now, (as the hive is upside down,) the bottom, their hive should be beaten smartly with two small rods on the front and back, or on the sides to which the combs are attached, so as to run no risk of loosening them. If the hive when removed from its stand was put upon a stool or table, or something not so solid as the ground, the drumming will cause more motion, and yet be less apt to start any of the combs. These "rappings" which certainly are not of a very "spiritual" character, produce nevertheless, a most decided effect upon the bees: their first impulse is to sally out and wreak their vengeance upon those who have thus rudely assailed their honied dome; but as soon as they find that they are shut in, a sudden fear that they are to be driven from their treasures, seems to take possession of them. If the two hives have glass windows, so that all the operations can be witnessed, the bees, in a few moments, will be seen most busily engaged in gorging themselves with honey. During all this time, the rapping must be continued, and in about five minutes, nearly every bee will have filled itself to its utmost capacity, and they are now prepared for their forced emigration; a prodigious hum is heard, and the bees begin to mount into the upper box. In about ten minutes from the time the rapping began, the mass of the bees with their queen will have ascended, and will hang clustered, just like a natural swarm. The box with the expelled bees must now be gently lifted off, and should be placed upon a bottom-board with a gauze wire ventilator, so that the bees may be confined, and yet have plenty of air. A shallow vessel or a piece of old comb containing water, ought to be first placed on the bottom-board. If no gauze wire bottom-board is at hand, the hive must be wedged up, so as to admit an abundance of air, and be set in a shady place. The hive from which the bees were driven, must now be set, without crushing any of the bees, on its old spot, in the place of the decoy hive, that all the bees which have returned from abroad, may enter. Before this change is made, these bees will be running in and out of the empty hive, (See p. 72,) but as soon as the opportunity is given them, they will crowd into their well-known home, and if there are no royal cells started, will proceed, almost at once, to construct them, and the next day they will act as though the forced swarm had left of its own accord. When the operation is delayed until about the season for natural swarming, the hive will contain immature queens, if the bees were intending to swarm, and a new queen will soon take the place of the old one, just as in natural swarming. If it is performed too early, and before the drones have made their appearance, the young queen may not be seasonably impregnated, and the parent stock will perish.