THE BEE. 



original swarm, and is attended with circumstances precisely 

 similar. 



135. Let us now return to the original hive and see what took 

 place there after the departure and abdication of the reigning 

 queen. 



As examples proving the loyalty and fidelity of the bees to their 

 queen, Dr. Bevan quotes some remarkable and interesting cases 

 supplied by Dr. Warder. That apiarist being desirous of ascer- 

 taining the extent of the loyal feeling among these little people, 

 hazarded the loss of a swarm in an experiment made with that 

 object. Having shaken on the grass all the bees from a hive 

 which they had tenanted only the preceding day, he carefully 

 sought for and quietly caught the queen. Then placing her with 

 a few attendants in a box, he took her into his parlour, where the 

 lid being removed, she and her attendants immediately^ flew to 

 the window, when he clipped off one of her wings, returned her 

 to the box and confined her there for more than an hour. 



In less than a quarter of an hour the swarm ascertained the 

 loss of their queen, and instead of clustering together in a single 

 mass as usual, like a bunch of grapes, they spread themselves 

 over a space of several feet, were much agitated, and uttered a 

 plaintive sound. An hour afterwards they all took flight and 

 settled upon the hedge where they had first alighted after leaving 

 the parent stock, but instead of clustering together in a single 

 bunch, as when the queen accompanied them, and as swarms 

 usually hang, they extended themselves thirty feet along the 

 hedge in small bunches of forty or fifty or more. 



The queen was now presented to them, when they quickly 

 gathered round her with a joyful hum, and formed one harmonious 

 cluster. At night the Doctor hived them again, and on the next 

 morning repeated the experiment to see whether the bees would 

 rise. The queen being in a mutilated state, and unable to accom- 

 pany them, they surrounded her for several hours apparently 

 willing to die with her rather than abandon her in her distress. 

 The queen was a second time removed, when they spread them- 

 selves out again, as though in search of her. Her repeated 

 restoration to them at different parts of their circle produced one 

 uniform result, and these poor loving and loyal creatures always, 

 marched and counter -marched every way as the queen was laid. 

 The Doctor persevered in these experiments, till, after five days 

 and nights of voluntary fasting, they all died of inanition except 

 the queen, and she survived her faithful subjects only a few 

 hours. 



This remarkable attachment between queen and subjects appears 

 to be reciprocal, the sovereign being as strongly sensible of it as 

 63 



