When bees were swarming, we went out with bells and gongs and metal pans and made a hideous noise, relying on the old belief that clanging metal tempted swarms to pitch close by instead of flying away. But, by Lubbock’s showing, it was all in vain, as bees are deaf. In describing his experiments, _Ants, Bees and Wasps_, page 290, ed. 1898, he says--“I tried one of my bees with a violin. I made all the noise I could, but to my surprise she took no notice. I could not even see a twitch of the antennæ.” Bertini made a marble statue of Jenner vaccinating a child. Some modern man might rival it with Lubbock playing to a bee. Whether the bees heard us or not, they usually pitched close by; and then the next thing was to gather some bame and cut down boughs of halse. (Bame is balm, and halse is hazel.) Then some sugar was put into a clean straw hive and was rubbed in with the bame, the sap making a sort of syrup; and then the hive was held out (upside down) underneath the swarm. If the swarm had pitched on the branch of a tree--as was usually the case--it could be jerked off bodily into the hive by giving the branch a knock: failing that, it might be swept in sideways with a brush. But, if the queen was left behind, the other bees went back to her; and then we had to try again. When the swarm was in, the hive was put down on a sheet (the right way up) and was covered over with the boughs of halse. And at nightfall, when the bees had gone to sleep, the hive was taken up again and placed upon its little table and roofed in with its sheaf of straw, and hoops were slipped on over the sheaf to keep it in its place.--But the swarms did not always pitch close by: sometimes they went soaring up, and then away across the valley, far beyond pursuit. A few summers ago a stray swarm took possession of the letterbox near Lustleigh Cleave. Bees came out, when letters were put in; and, when the letters were taken out, the postman was so badly stung that he refused to go again. So the usual notice of Hours of Collection was superseded by a notice of Ware Bees. After proper correspondence the superintendent at Newton Abbot authorised the sub-postmaster at Lustleigh to pay a bee-man to clear out the bees. These bee-men take up bees in handfuls, and seem never to be stung; but the fact is they have been stung so often that the sting has ceased to take effect. One of them told me that he had been stung a hundred times in a day and hardly felt it. He cleared the box; and as he saved the swarm and got the honey and was paid as well, it was not unremunerative work. At a farm of mine I noticed a stain and a bulge in a bedroom ceiling, and thought the rain was coming through the thatch. It was a colony of bees up there making such a quantity of honey that the ceiling could not stand the weight. The room was occupied by summer lodgers, and I fancied they would not forget their farmhouse-lodgings, if the honey and the bees fell through while they were there.