The Busy Bee 119 



the workers to go and come as they wish but 

 the queen and drones cannot leave the hive 

 until the trap is removed. 



Swarming is a wise provision of nature 

 by means of which the hive is kept from be- 

 coming congested, and it is an unwritten law 

 in beedom that the queen goes with the swarm- 

 ing bees. This leaves the old hive without a 

 queen and consequently without means of 

 keeping its numbers good, for you must re- 

 member that the life of a bee is only about 

 sixty days, so if a hive is left for any length of 

 time without a queen to lay eggs and hatch 

 out new members, the entire colony dies, and 

 the bee-keeper loses a hive. But this rarely 

 happens, for these little people are very in- 

 genious. Much more so than man, in fact, 

 and can supply any existing want in their 

 small but most active house. 



When the old hive is left without a queen 

 and none is ready to hatch, the colony may set 

 to work and make a queen to order, as you 

 might say. 



In our human government we have often 



