164 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



are commonly found in the cells twenty-four hours after 

 swarming, or at the latest two or three days. 



You may think, perhaps, that the bees which emi- 

 grate from the parent hive are the youth of the colony ; 

 but this is not the case, for bees of all ages unite to form 

 the swarms. The numbers of which they consist vary 

 much. Reaumur calls 12,000 a moderate swarm; and 

 he mentions one which amounted to more than three 

 times that number (40,000). A swarm seldom or never 

 takes place except when the sun shines and the air is 

 calm. Sometimes, when every thing seems to prognos- 

 ticate swarming, a cloud passing over the sun calms the 

 agitation ; and afterwards, upon his shining forth again, 

 the tumult is renewed, keeps augmenting, and the swarm 

 departs a . On this account the confinement of the queens, 

 before related, is observed to be more protracted in bad 

 weather. 



The longest interval between the swarms is from seven 

 to nine days, which usually is the space that intervenes 

 between the first and the second. The next flies sooner, 

 and the last sometimes departs the day after that which 

 preceded it. Fifteen or eighteen days, in favourable 

 weather, are usually sufficient for throwing the four 

 swarms. The old queen, when she takes flight with the 

 first swarm, leaves plenty of brood in the cells, which 

 soon renew the population b . 



It is not without example, though it rarely happens, 



* Bees are generally thought to foresee the state of the weather : 

 but they are not always right in their prognostics ; for Reaumur wit- 

 nessed a swarm, which after leaving the hive at half-past one o'clock 

 were overtaken by a very heavy shower at three. 



b Huber, i. 27 1*. 



