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.”