118 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



Whether bees send out scouts before or after swarming, 

 may admit of more question. When a colony flies to its 

 new home without alighting, the scouts must have "been 

 dispatched before swarming. If this were the usual 

 course, we should expect every colony to- take the same 

 speedy departure ; or if they should cluster for the con- 

 venience of the queen, or any bees over-Fatigued by the 

 excitement of swarming, we should look for only a tran- 

 sient tarrying. Instead of this, they often remain until 

 the next day, and instances are not unfrequent of a much 

 more protracted delay. The stopping of bees in their 

 flight to cluster again, is not inconsistent with these views; 

 for if the weather is hot when they first cluster, and the 

 sun shines directly upon them, they will often leave before 

 they have found a suitable habitation. Sometimes the 

 queen of an emigrating swarm, being heavy with eggs, 

 and unaccustomed to fly, is compelled to alight, before 

 she can reach their intended home. Queens, under such 

 circumstances, are occasionally unwilling to take wing 

 again, and the poor bees sometimes attempt to lay the foun- 

 dations of their colony on fence-rails, hay-stacks, or other 

 unsuitable places. 



Mr. Wagner says, that he once knew a swarm of bees 

 to lodge under the lowermost limb of an isolated oak- 

 tree, in a corn-field. It was not discovered until the corn 

 was harvested, in September. Those who found it, mis- 

 took it for a recent swarm, and in brushing it down to 

 hive it, broke off three pieces of comb, each about eight 

 inches square. Mr. Henry M. Zollickoffer, of Philadelphia, 

 informed me that he knew a swarm to settle on a willow- 

 tree in that city, in a lot owned by the Pennsylvania Hos- 

 pital ; it remained there for some time, and the boys pelted 

 it with stones, to get possession of its comb and honey. 



The necessity for scouts or explorers seems to be unquea- 



