142 HIVING OF SWARMS. 



ing, they all died of famine, except the queen, 

 who lived a few hours longer and then died. The 

 attachment of the queen to the working bees, ap- 

 peared to be equally as strong as their attachment 

 to her ; though offered honey on several occa- 

 sions, during the periods of her separation from 

 them, she constantly refused it, " disdaining a 

 life that was no life to her, without the company 

 of those which she could not have." 



My next instance is contained in the Trans- 

 actions of the Society of Arts, fyc. for 1790, in a 

 paper written by MR. SIMON MANLEY, of Topsham 

 in Devonshire, for which the Society awarded him 

 five guineas. " I have before now," says he, 

 " taken the queen bee, while in the act of swarm- 

 ing, put her into a clean bottle, and kept her from 

 the swarm a full hour. I have then shown her to 

 several gentlemen, the swarm continuing to hover, 

 without settling, the whole time. I brought her 

 home, and laid her on the floor of a kitchen 

 window. Being moist with her own breath in the 

 bottle, when I took her out she licked herself 

 clean, and being quite recovered, was carried out 

 and placed upon the hive she swarmed from. 

 About a handful of her subjects soon found her 

 out, and seemed much rejoiced at finding her. 

 From thence she rose up, and pitched upon a 

 currant bush, and the remainder of the swarm 

 came to her, and settled at once." 



