"I'd like to get a near view of these bees," said Russ, "but I don't fancy getting too close. It's no fun to be stung eight or ten times." "I'll lend you my hat," offered one of the men and, thus protected, Russ moved his camera closer and got a fine view of the swarm of honey-making insects as they alighted on the low branch of an apple tree. "Git the hive, now, sir!" called another of the men, and while the hive was brought up, to receive the bunch of bees when they should be knocked into it, with their queen, about whom they were clustered, Russ got a fine film of that. Afterward Sandy explained how bees swarm. A colony of bees will permit but one queen in a hive. Sometimes, when a new one is hatched, the swarm divides, part of the bees going off with the new, or sometimes the old queen, to form a new colony. This is called "swarming," and the idea is to capture the new swarm, and so increase your number of colonies. Sometimes the bees will go off to the woods, and make a home for themselves in a hollow tree, being thus lost to the keeper. A swarm of bees will make in a season many pounds of honey more than they need to feed themselves during the winter. Sandy explained how faithful and devoted a colony of bees is to their queen, which is the bee that lays eggs out of which are hatched drones, or male bees, and the workers. There is a peculiar kind of honey called "queen bread," and sometimes, it is said by some, when a queen bee dies, the workers will select a "cell" containing an egg that will eventually hatch, and surround this egg with queen bread so that when the insect develops enough, it can feed on that instead of on ordinary honey. This is said to change the character of the insect and make a queen of it to replace the one that has died. Or, if this is not done the queenless colony may merge with another that has a queen. In order to prevent the hatching of too many queens the bee keeper will examine his hives frequently, and cut out all the "queen cells," thus preventing them from hatching and so causing the bees to swarm frequently. They all watched while the men shook the cluster of bees into the new hive, and carried them away, Russ, meanwhile getting a fine film of the operation. Later this film was shown with much success in New York, so that, after all, the interruption of the school scene had a happy outcome. Later the little play was finished. "Whew!" exclaimed Paul, when it was all over. "That was some going on, all right!" "Does your sting hurt much?" asked Alice, solicitously. "I think it would be better for some ammonia," he replied. "I'll put some on for you when we get back to the house," she offered, "and some witch hazel, too." "It feels better already--just with the thought of that," he answered gallantly. CHAPTER XX THAT MAN