LOBS OF THE QUEEN. 215 



by side, over a trench, so that, through ventilators in their 

 bottom-boards, they might receive, in Summer, a cooler, 

 and in Winter, a much warmer air, than the external 

 atmosphere. By this arrangement which failed entirely 

 to answer its design many of my colonies became queen- 

 less, and I soon ascertained under what circumstances 

 young queens are ordinarily lost. 



From the great uniformity of the hives in size, shape, 

 color, and height, it was next to impossible for a young 

 queen to be sure of returning to her hive. The difficulty 

 was increased, from the fact that the ground before the 

 trench was free from bushes or trees, and no hive except 

 the two end ones, which did not lose their queens could 

 have its location more easily remembered, from its relative 

 position to some external object. Most of the hives thus 

 placed, which had young queens, became queenless, al- 

 though supplied with other queens, again and again ; and 

 many, even of the workers, were constantly entering hives 

 adjoining their own. 



If a traveler should be carried, in a dark night, to a 

 hotel in a strange city, and on rising in the morning, 

 should find the strees filled with buildings precisely like it, 

 he would be able to return to his proper place, only by pre- 

 viously ascertaining its number, or by counting the houses 

 between it and the corner. Such a numbering faculty, 

 however, was not given to the queen-bee ; for who, in a 

 state of nature, ever saw a dozen or more hollow trees or 

 other places frequented by bees, standing close together, 

 precisely alike in size, shape, and color, with their en- 

 trances all facing the same way, and. at exactly the same 

 height from the ground ! 



On describing to a friend my observations on the loss of 

 queens, he told me that in the management of his hens, 

 he had fallen into a somewhat similar mistake. To econo- 



