3-070-823 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Swarm of bees in Wellington-Street, Strand, [London], 1881. '...Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier [of "The Field" magazine]...was quietly sitting and writing in his editorial study, when a brother naturalist came in to tell him that the bees were assembled just round the corner. He went out and found them besieging the stage door of the Gaiety Theatre, and greatly alarming some of the lady members of Mr. Hollingshead's theatrical company, who wanted to go in for a rehearsal...Mr. Tegetmeier at once sent for a ladder, as the bees had swarmed high up the front of the Army and Navy Gazette office; then, having armed himself with a short broom and with a cylindrical cheese-box and a dish-cloth from the Restaurant, he boldly ascended, and cleverly, with one sweep, brushed all the insects into the box, clapped the cloth over them, and had them fast prisoners, to the admiration of all spectators in the street below. He then placed a hive, with the queen bee, in the balcony, and set the box there beside it, allowing the whole swarm to pass into the hive and rally round their queen...They are now doing well in a frame hive, and he hopes the queen bee will be the parent of many stocks, to be called "the Strand bees".' From "Illustrated London News", 1881.