356 ON THE ECONOMY OF BEES. 



In the following year two other hives presented similar indications that 

 their swarms would unite ; and being anxious to ascertain whether such 

 unions were accidental, or the consequence of previous arrangements, 

 I paid very close attention to their proceedings, and the following singular 

 circumstances came under my observation : After both hives had given 

 frequent indications that a swarm was ready to issue from each of them, 

 one swarm only rose, and that, after hovering in the air during a much 

 longer time than ordinary, settled upon, and around, a bush about twenty- 

 five yards distant from the hive whence they had issued ; but instead of 

 collecting together into a compact mass, as they usually do, they remained 

 thinly dispersed, scarcely two being anywhere in contact with each other. 

 In this state they continued nearly half an hour motionless, and apparently 

 discontented and sulky ; and they then gradually began to rise and 

 return home, not apparently in obedience to any command or signal ; for 

 they did not rise more abundantly at any one point of time than at 

 another, but each individual seemed to go when tired of waiting. 



The next morning a swarm issued from the other hive, and proceeded 

 to the bush upon and around which the other swarm had settled on the 

 preceding day, collecting themselves into a mass as they usually do when 

 their queen is present. This was precisely what I had anticipated, but I 

 was much disappointed that no movement or agitation took place in the 

 other hive. Within a very few minutes, however, and very soon after the 

 swarm above mentioned had fully settled, a very large number of bees 

 suddenly rushed from the hive to which the swarm had returned on the 

 preceding day, and proceeded so directly to the swarm which had just 

 settled, that their course was marked through its whole extent by a per- 

 fectly visible dark and narrow line, and they united themselves, without 

 hovering a single instant, to the other swarm. These circumstances, con- 

 jointly with others which I have stated in my former communication upon 

 this subject, satisfied me that these unions are generally, if not always, 

 the result of previous and perfectly well understood arrangements, though 

 it is not easy to conjecture how such arrangements can be made. 



I shall proceed to state a few circumstances which appear to throw 

 light upon some of the phenomena observable in the mode of breeding of 

 bees. It has long been known that these animals possess the power of 

 raising a queen-bee from any recently -deposited egg which under ordinary 

 circumstances would have produced a labouring bee ; but whether this 

 power extends to those eggs which, when deposited in larger cells, afford 

 male or drone bees, has not, I believe, been accurately ascertained. The 



