SWAKMING AND HIVING. 119 



tionable, unless we can admit that bees have the faculty of 

 flying in an " air line," to a hollow tree which they have 

 never seen, and which may be the only one among thous* 

 ands where they can find a suitable abode. 



These views are confirmed by the repeated instances in 

 which a few bees have been noticed inquisitively prying 

 into a hole in a hollow tree, or the cornice of a building, 

 and have, before long, been followed by a whole 

 colony. 



Having described the method commonly pursued by a 

 new swarm, when left to their natural instincts, we return 

 to the parent-stock from which they emigrated. 



From the immense number which have abandoned it, 

 we should naturally infer that it must be nearly depopu- 

 lated. As bees swarm in the pleasantest part of the day, 

 some suppose that the population is replenished by the 

 return of large numbers from the fields ; this, however, 

 cannot often be the case, as it is seldom that many are 

 absent from the hive at the time of swarming. To those 

 who limit the fertility of the queen to four hundred eggs 

 a day, the rapid replenishing of a hive, after swarming, 

 must be inexplicable ; but to those who have seen her lay 

 from one to three thousand eggs a day, it is no mystery 

 at all. Enough bees remain to carry on the domestic 

 operations of the hive ; and as the old queen departs only 

 when there is a teeming population, and when thousands 

 of young are daily hatching, and tens of thousands rapidly 

 maturing, the hive, in a short time, is almost as populous 

 as it was before swarming. 



Those who suppose that the new colony consists wholly 

 of young bees, forced to emigrate by the older ones, if 

 they closely examine a new swarm, will find that while 

 some have the ragged wings of age, others are so young 

 as to be barely able to fly. 



