THE PASTORAL BEES. 21 



imperial and authoritative : Huber relates that when 

 the old queen is restrained in her movements by the 

 workers, ahd prevented from destroying the young 

 queens in their cells, she assumes a peculiar attitude 

 and utters a note that strikes every bee motionless, 

 and makes every head bow; while this sound lasts 

 not a bee stirs, but all look abashed and humbled, yet 

 whether the emotion is one of fear, or reverence, or 

 of sympathy with the distress of the queen mother 

 is hard to determine. The moment it ceases and she 

 advances again toward the royal cells the bees bite 

 and pull and insult her as before. 



I always feel that I have missed some good fortune 

 if I am away from home when my bees swarm. 

 What a delightful summer sound it is ; how they come 

 pouring out of the hive, twenty or thirty thousand 

 bees each striving to get out first ; it is as when the 

 dam gives way and lets the waters loose, it is a flood 

 of bees which breaks upward into the air and becomes 

 to maze of whirling black lines to the eye and a soft 

 ohorus of myriad musical sounds to the ear. This 

 way and that way they drift, now contracting, now 

 expanding, rising, sinking, growing thick about some 

 branch or bush, then dispersing and massing at some 

 other point, till finally they begin to alight in earnest, 

 when in a few moments the whole swarm is collected 

 upon the branch, forming a bunch perhaps as large 

 as a two-gallon measure. Here they will hang from 

 One to three or four hours or until a suitable tree 

 in the woods is looked up, when, if they have not 



