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peculiar preparatory flight around the hive, known as swarming. The 
impulse to leave is such that many individuals not yet capable of flight 
fall to the ground, and the hive is practically abandoned by all those 
within it at the time of swarming. Individuals alight on some bough 
or object near by, with a view primarily to organization and the send- 
ing out and return of additional scouts. During this period a cluster 
will remain more or less in repose, but when once the location for a 
permanent dwelling has been finally determined upon, the whole mass 
will leave as with one impulse and fly swiftly and directly to the new 
home. With the first swarm that the new colony sends out it is the 
old or fertile queen that goes with the new swarm, but with the after 
swarms, which issue in about a week, it is a virgin queen that accom- 
panies. The old colony begins again witlr the few individuals unable 
to follow the departing swarm, and which have crept back to the old 
hive, with those which at the time of swarming were busy in the field, 
and with those which issue from the yet undeveloped brood. 
It is a popular mistake to suppose that mating takes place during 
swarming. If a virgin queen goes with the swarm, she subsequently 
takes the nuptial flight from her new home. As she flies swiftly and 
strongly, only the strongest and most vigorous drones are able to mate 
with her, and there is every opportunity for cross-fertilization with 
drones from some other colony. It has also been noticed that drones 
have a way of congregating in some particular spot as though awaiting 
their chance of thus mating with the queen. 
THE MORE IMPORTANT SPECIAL ORGANS. 
The different structures and organs of the Hive Bee are most inter- 
esting, but I can allude only to a few of the more striking. The 
tongue is a very complex organ, fitted for obtaining minute quantities 
of nectar from the flowers that secrete it but sparingly, or to remove 
the same substance rapidly when found in abundance. The figure of 
the head and appendages will illustrate this organ in detail. We 
have the mandible, mostly used for cutting and molding the wax, the 
maxille with their palpi, the labium and labial palpi, and finally the 
ligula or true tongue with its. spoonlike tip. This is extremely flexible, 
and consists of a rod or central portion, nearly surrounded by a 
Sheath, which is covered thickly with hairs, which aid, by capillary 
attraction, in taking up the liquid food. A lapping motion, when the 
liquid is abundant, causes the liquid to be lodged among the hairs of 
the tongue, which can be partially drawn into the mentum, and 
from this point the maxillz above and the labial palpi below unite to 
form a tube around it, which is closed above the extension of the 
epipharynx, and by alternately arching and depressing the maxillz, 
the space inclosed is increased or decreased, thus producing suction 
and drawing the liquid held on the tongue into the opening of the 
esophagus. 
