226 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



(p. 51), by removing all excess of drone-comb from the 

 breeding apartment.* 



In the Summer of 1853, 1 discovered that after a queen 

 is taken from a paper cone (p. 159), the bees will run in 

 and out of it for a long time, thus proving that they recog- 

 nize her peculiar scent. It is this odor which causes them 

 to run inquiringly over our hands, after we have caught a 

 queen, and over any spot where she alighted when her 

 swarm came forth. 



This scent of the queen was probably known in Aristo- 

 tle's tune, who says : " When the bees swarm, if the king 

 (queen) is lost, we are told that they all search for him, 

 and follow him with their sagacious smell, until they find 

 him." Wildman says : " The scent of her body is so at- 

 tractive to them, that the slightest touch of her along any 

 place or substance will attract the bees to it, and induce 

 them to pursue any path she takes."f 



The intelligent bee-keeper will readily perceive not only 

 how the loss of queens may be remedied, by the movable- 

 comb hive, but how any operation, which in other hives 

 is performed with difficulty, if at all, is in this rendered 

 easy and certain. No hive, however, can make the 

 ignorant or negligent very successful, unless they live in a 

 region where the climate is so propitious, and the honey 

 resources so abundant, that bees will prosper in spite of 

 mismanagement or neglect. 



Those who have not the leisure or disposition to manage 

 their own bees, may, with my hives, entrust the care of 



* If a number of drones are confined in a small box, they give forth a strong 

 odor: Swammerdam supposed that the queen was impregnated by this scent 

 ( aura seminalis ") of the drones. 



t Before becoming acquainted with these authors, I supposed myself to have 

 made an original discovery. Mr. P. J. Mahan informs me that after handling the 

 queen he has had bees several times alight upon his fingers, when he was a mile or 

 more from his Apiary. 



