446 ifcsfcCTs. 



head of a swarm, till she have finished her laying of male eggs J 

 but this is of importance, not merely that she may be lighter and 

 fitter for flight, but that she may be ready to begin with the laying 

 of workers' eggs in her new habitation, workers being the bees first 

 needed in order to secure the continuance and prosperity of the 

 newly -founded commonwealth. 



3dly, " After the old queen has conducted the first swarm from 

 the hive, the remaining bees take particular care of the royal cells, 

 and prevent the young queens, successively hatched, from leaving 

 them, unless at an interval of several days between each." Under 

 this head he introduces a number of general remarks, some of which 

 may prove useful. " A swarm," he observes, *f is never seen* 

 unless in a fine day, or, to speak more correctly, at a time of the 

 day when the sun shines, and the air is calm. Sometimes we have 

 observed all the precursors of swarming, disorder and agitation ; 

 but a cloud passed before the sun, and tranquillity was restored ; 

 the bees thought no more of swarming. An hour afterwards, the 

 sun having again appeared, the tumult was renewed ; it rapidly 

 augmented ; and the swarm departed." A certain degree of tumult 

 commences as soon as the young queens are hatched, and begin to 

 traverse the hive : the agitation soon pervades the whole bees ; and 

 such a ferment then rages, that M. Huber has often observed the 

 thermometer in the hive to rise suddenly from about g2 to above 

 104: this suffocating heat he considers as one of the means era- 

 ployed by nature for urging the bees to go off in swarms. In warm 

 weather, one strong hive has been known to send off four swarms 

 in eighteen days. 



4thly, " The young queens conducting swarms from their native 

 hive are still in a virgin state." The day after being settled in their 

 new abode, they generally set out in quest of the males, and this is 

 usually the fifth day of their existence as queens. Old queens con* 

 ducting the first swarms, require no renewal of their intercourse 

 with the male, a single interview being sufficient to fecundate all the 

 eggs that a queen will lay for at least two years. This is considered 

 by Mr. Bonner as quite an incredible circumstance ; insomuch that 

 he remarks, either in a sarcastic or in a very innocent style, that if a 

 queen*bee n should continue for seven or eight months with about 

 12,000 impregnated eggs in her ovarium, it certainly would make 

 her appear very large l" The worthy bee-master seems to have 



