ON THE ECONOMY OF BEES. 349 



discover anything like actual resistance or hostility to take place ; 

 though I was much inclined to believe the intercourse between the hives 



O 



to be hostile and predatory. The same kind of intercourse continued, in 

 a greater or less degree, during eight succeeding days ; and though I 

 watched them very closely, nothing occurred to induce me to suppose 

 that their intercourse was not of an amicable kind. On the tenth 

 morning, however, their friendship ended, as sudden and violent friend- 

 ships often do, in a quarrel ; and they fought most furiously, and after 

 this there was no more visiting. 



Two years subsequent to this period I observed the same kind of inter- 

 course to take place between two hives of my own bees, which were 

 about two hundred yards distant from each other; they passed from 

 each hive to the other just as they did in the preceding instance, and a 

 similar degree of agitation was observable. In this instance, however, 

 their friendship appeared to be of much shorter duration, for they fought 

 most desperately on the fifth day ; and then, as in the last-mentioned 

 case, all further visiting ceased. 



I have some reason to believe that the kind of intercourse I have 

 described, which I have often seen and which is by no means uncommon, 

 not unfrequently ends in a junction of the two swarms ; for one instance 

 came under my observation many years ago in which the labouring bees, 

 under circumstances perfectly similar to those I have described, wholly 

 disappeared, leaving the drones in peaceable possession of the hive, but 

 without anything to live upon. I have also reasons for believing that 

 whenever a junction of two swarms, with their property, is agreed upon, 

 that which proposes to remove, immediately or soon afterwards unites 

 with the other swarm, and returns to the deserted hive during the day 

 only to carry off the honey ; for having examined at night a hive from 

 which I suspected the bees to be migrating, I found it without a single 

 inhabitant. I was led to make the examination by information I had 

 received from a very accurate observer, that all the bees would then be 

 absent. A very considerable quantity of honey was in this instance left 

 in the hive without any guards to defend it ; but I conclude that the 

 bees would have returned for it, had it remained till the next day. 

 Whenever the bees quit their habitation in this way, I have always 

 observed some fighting to take place ; but I conceived it to be between 

 the bees of the adjoining hives and those which were removing ; the 

 former being attracted by the scent of the honey which the latter were 

 carrying off. 



On the farm which I occupy there were formerly many old decayed 



