WILDWOOD WAYS 



a day the hive was deserted. It was as 

 if the entire colony had swarmed, and so 

 they had, but not as a hive of bees swarms. 

 They had left the old home never to re- 

 turn, but not as a colony seeking a new 

 land in which to prosper. The first chill 

 of autumn laid the cold hand of death on 

 their busy life. They went away as indi- 

 viduals and stopped, numbed with cold, 

 wherever the chill caught them. 



Where they went it is hard to say, but 

 one hornet or a thousand crawling into a 

 crevice to escape the cold is easily lost 

 in the great world of out-of-doors. No 

 worker survives the winter. I think the 

 intensity of their labors during the sum- 

 mer, the continued use of that energy 

 that bubbles within them all summer 

 long, exhausts them and they succumb 

 easily, worked out. With the young 

 queens it is different. Their work is yet 

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