Swarm_bell_lore (from Aaron Morris) sci.agriculture.beekeeping Extracted from BEE-L: >--- The TANG of Swarm Season ---< Curtis Spacek (cspacek@FLASH.NET) queries, "What effect does banging pots and pans together have on swarming bees to cause them to light on a nearby tree? I have seen this only once and was told the bees think it is thunder so they light to gain protection from the rain. Sid Pullinger (SidPul@COMPUSERVE.COM) responded: "It is strange how these stories persist. What he saw was pure co- incidence. 99% of swarms settle near from where they came prior to going off to their chosen home. I think that human noise, shouting and banging of pans, has no effect on bees at all. However, it appears that many in the past thought so and the idea has persisted down the centuries. Village beekeeping was popular in the old days in England and, as he states later, banging on a pan could be a signal to other beekeepers, "This is my swarm." Hives were small and swarming and casting took place every year. I decided to see what references I could find to "tanging", as it is called, in a few old books. Quoting from a book by T B Miner, an American beekeeper, published in 1846, we find "The custom of jingling of bells and rattling of tin pans originated from the cottagers of Europe, residing in communities making a practice of ringing bells or thumping on tin pans when a swarm issued so as to know who the owner was: since swarms issuing from the premises of one cottager would frequently cluster on the grounds of another." And from a book by A Neighbour, well known English beekeeper and appliance maker, writing in 1866, "In many country districts it is a time-honoured custom for the good folks of the village to commence on such occasions a terrible noise of tanging and ringing with frying pan and key. This is done with the absurd notion that the bees are charmed with the clangorous din and by it may be induced to settle as near as possible to the source of such sweet sounds. This is, however, quite a mistake. The practice of ringing was originally adopted for a different and far more sensible ob- ject ---- viz., for the purpose of giving notice that a swarm had issued forth, and that the owner was anxious to claim the right of following, even though it should alight on a neighbour's premises. It would be curious to trace how this ancient ceremony has thus got corrupted from the ori- ginal design." And an explanation from Root's _A_B_C_of_Bee_Culture_, 1905: "In the old fashioned boxhive days, the ringing of bells and the tanging of tin pans was considered very essential in causing a swarm to alight. These old-timers probably did not know that the bees would cluster before going off, noise or no noise. Because they settled on some tree after each tanging, such tanging was supposed to be essential. At one time this old custom was supposed to be a relic of an old superstition: but it is now known that one of the old kings of England once issued an edict that , whenever a swarm came forth, the owner of it was to ring bells or drum on tin pans to give notice that his bees were out, thus preventing any- one else from claiming them. What was done in an obedience to an old law, for an entirely different purpose, has crept down through the generations until the old significance is lost." So much for recent history. Going further back in time I found in Dr. Crane's book _The_Archaeology_of_Beekeeping_ an illustration of an etching on a silver goblet now in London and made in 1683. It clearly depicts a beekeeper tanging as the swarm issues from the hive, suggesting that the noise is for the bees and not neighbours. Finally, in H M F raser's book _Beekeeping_in_Antiquity_ I found more references from the first centuries BC and AD which indicated that the be- lief existed that tanging brought the bees down. No doubt there are many more references, some even earlier, if one has the time and books to search. Clearly the origin of tanging lies in the dim and distant past.