Someone asked:
<<An old man told me that his grandfather always carried a shotgun and when he saw a swarm leave the hive he would fire into the air and that would cause them to settle on the ground or somewhere low is there anything to that?>>
It was popular beekeeping belief in those days that you could make a swarm settle if the bees thought rain or a storm was coming. .... If bee-keeper thinks that the bees are going to swarm, he can generally send it back into the hive, by gently sprinkling the cluster of bees as they hang out of the hive, with water from a small watering-pot. The same means have been adopted to make the swarm alight where it was wanted, but as water cannot always be thrown high enough to reach a swarm on the wing, sand, dirt, small pebbles thrown into the flying swarm have also been found sufficient for the purpose, and the bees, mistaking it for rain, come down at once and settle in some sheltered place. Some bee-keepers recommend firing a gun, which the bees may possibly mistake for thunder. But as some beekeepers misinterpret proper method for how to use a gun to check the flight of fleeing swarms, there are accounts of shotguns being fired directly into a swarm which is never a good idea.
References:
circa. 1862 Bees: their habits, management and treatment
John George Wood -page 44
https://books.google.com/books?id=UYxQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false
<<An old man told me that his grandfather always carried a shotgun and when he saw a swarm leave the hive he would fire into the air and that would cause them to settle on the ground or somewhere low is there anything to that?>>
It was popular beekeeping belief in those days that you could make a swarm settle if the bees thought rain or a storm was coming. .... If bee-keeper thinks that the bees are going to swarm, he can generally send it back into the hive, by gently sprinkling the cluster of bees as they hang out of the hive, with water from a small watering-pot. The same means have been adopted to make the swarm alight where it was wanted, but as water cannot always be thrown high enough to reach a swarm on the wing, sand, dirt, small pebbles thrown into the flying swarm have also been found sufficient for the purpose, and the bees, mistaking it for rain, come down at once and settle in some sheltered place. Some bee-keepers recommend firing a gun, which the bees may possibly mistake for thunder. But as some beekeepers misinterpret proper method for how to use a gun to check the flight of fleeing swarms, there are accounts of shotguns being fired directly into a swarm which is never a good idea.
References:
circa. 1862 Bees: their habits, management and treatment
John George Wood -page 44
https://books.google.com/books?id=UYxQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false