BE E. 



423 



Bee. will serve for subsisting the bees. The hive is then 

 '/ ' to be closed up a: '. transported to a place where the 

 temperature is moderate. Violent agitation ensues 

 among the bees whenever they discover that they are 

 imprisoned, and the tumult becomes still greater on 

 their ascertaining that their sovereign is no longer 

 with them. Silence succeeds, which is next followed 

 by greater noise and confusion than what attends 

 swarming. Immediately afterwards a new operation 

 begins, and from the second day the construction of 

 a royal cell is seen. The confinement of the bees 

 must be protracted some days ; but on the fourth or 

 fifth, the hive may be carried into a garden, and the 

 prisoners allowed to escape. Their eagerness to do 

 o is such, that hardly one remains in the hive ; how- 

 ever, in two hours they return to it again. The en- 

 trance must still be closed at night, and the hive car- 

 ried into a house, unless the fineness of the weather 

 admits of it being left without. If the operator, on 

 opening the hive, finds the brood hatched, and the 

 royal cells well advanced, he should transfer the whole 

 along with the bees into a dwelling of greater capaci- 

 ty, provided a small box has been used with three or 

 four combs of white wax fixed near the top, that the 

 interior may resemble a hive containing work already 

 commenced. Should the queen be hatched, it will 

 facilitate the operation if she can be transferred to the 

 new dwelling : and thus the artificial swarm is form- 

 ed. It is difficult to perform this operation with the 

 common straw hives ; but an expert person may ac- 

 complish it by means similar to those adopted in rob- 

 bing the bees of their provisions. Here the use of the 

 book or leaf hive is especially demonstrated; for it 

 affords facilities in forming artificial swarms infinitely 

 surpassing any others that have yet been devised. 

 Under the conditions above specified, of brood and 

 population, the leaf-hive is to be gently separated in 

 the middle, and two empty frames insinuated between 

 the halves. The queen must then be sought for in 

 one of the halves, and a mark put on her, in order 

 to avoid mistake. Should she by chance remain in 

 the division with most brood, she is to be transferred 

 to the other containing less, that the bees may have 

 every chance of obtaining another female. Next, it 

 is necessary to connect the halves together by a cord 

 tied tight around them : and care should be taken to 

 place them on the same board which the hive pre- 

 viously occupied. The old entrance, now become 

 useless, will be shut up; but as each half requires a 

 new one, these ought to be made at the extremities 

 of the two divisions, on purpose to be as far asunder 

 as possible. Both, however, should not be made on 

 the same day. The bees in the half deprived of the 

 queen, ought to be confined twenty-four hours, and 

 no opening made before the lapse of that time, ex- 

 cept for the admission of air ; otherwise they would 

 soon search for the queen, and infallibly find her in 

 the other division. But provided twenty-four hours 

 be sufficient to make them forget their queen, this 

 will not happen. When all circumstances are favour- 

 able, the bees in the division wanting the queen will 

 begin to labour in procuring another ; and about fif- 

 teen days after the operation, as before observed, their 

 loss will be repaired. " The young female they have 

 reared," according to Huber, " soon issues forth to 



seek impregnation, and in two days commences the Bee. 

 laying of workers' eggs. Nothing more is wanting to v ' ' 



the bees of her division, and the success of the arti- 

 ficial swarm is ensured." The time of resorting to 

 this expedient is, when the males are about to origi- 

 nate or actually exist : if attempted earlier, the bees 

 will be discouraged by the sterility of their young 

 female. The structure of the leaf hive enables us 

 easily to ascertain the concurrence of the necessary 

 conditions ; for by simply opening the frames succes- 

 sively, their whole contents are exposed to view. 



Should the original queen be accidentally lost or Substitu- 

 destroyed, the cultivator has still another means of l ' on of a 

 preserving the whole colony, which, destitute of new 1" eel V 

 workers' brood, would infallibly perish, by substitu- 

 ting a new one in her place. Bees are not immedi- 

 ately sensible of the loss or removal of their queen ; 

 their labours are uninterrupted ; they watch over the 

 young, and perform their ordinary occupations. But 

 in a few hours agitation arises ; all appears a scene of 

 tumult in the hive ; a singular humming is heard ; 

 the workers desert their young, and rush with deliri- 

 ous impetuosity over the surface of the combs. Then 

 they discover that their queen is no longer among 

 them. There can be no question that this agitation 

 is the consequence of bees having lost their queen ; 

 for should she have been intentionally removed, tran- 

 quillity returns on restoring her, and, what is very 

 singular, she is recognised. If a stranger queen be 

 introduced after the reigning one is lost or taken 

 away, the agitation continues ; the stranger is sur- 

 rounded, seized, and kept captive by the bees in an 

 impenetrable cluster, where she usually dies either of 

 hunger or from the privation of air. If eighteen hours 

 elapse, the stranger is at first treated in the same 

 manner, but with less rigour ; the bees gradually dis- 

 perse, and she is at last liberated. But should there 

 be an interval of twenty-four hours after the loss of 

 the original queen before the stranger one is substi- 

 tuted, " she will be well received," to use the words 

 of an eminent author, " and reign from the moment 

 of her introduction into the hive." On this head, 

 which it is extremely important for the cultivator to 

 be intimately acquainted with, we are indebted to 

 Huber for some interesting experiments. On the 

 15th of April, he introduced a fertile queen, eleven 

 months old, into a glass hive, where the bees having 

 been twenty-four hours deprived of their queen, had 

 already begun to construct twelve royal cells. Im- 

 mediately on placing the stranger female on a comb, 

 the bees in the vicinity touched her with their anten- 

 nae, and passing their trunks over every part of her 

 body, supplied her with honey. These then gave 

 place to others, by which she was treated exactly in the 

 same manner. All vibrated their wings at once, and 

 ranged themselves in a circle " around their sove- 

 reign." Hence resulted a kind of agitation, which 

 gradually communicated to the workers situated on 

 the same side of the comb, and induced them to come 

 and see what was going on. Soon arriving, they broke 

 through the circle formed by the first of their com- 

 panions, approached the queen, touched her with the 

 antennas, and gave her honey. After this little ce- 

 remony, they retired, and, standing behind the others, 

 enlarged the circle. There they vibrated their wings, 



