HYMENOPTERA. 333 
queens, when they are shut up in their cells, have the head down- 
wards, whilst the larvee of the males have the head upwards. Their 
hatching takes place thirteen days after the laying of the eggs. 
As soon as they have quitted their cradles, the young queens 
are ready to take flight. The others, workers and males, are 
less strongly organised. Before they are able to take a part in 
the sports and labours of the old ones, they require a rest of 
twenty-four hours, during which the nurses lick them, brush 
them, and offer them honey. But the young workers require te 
undergo no apprenticeship before they do the work which devolves 
upon them. They go straight to their work, and suppress all 
apprenticeship. Nature is their guide and counsellor. 
When the hatching has begun, each day adds some hundreds of 
young bees to the population of the hive, which is not long in 
becoming too small for the number of its inhabitants. It is then 
that those curious emigrations of this winged people take place 
which are called swarms. The queen leaves the hive, with a part 
of her subjects, and founds a new colony elsewhere. In the 
climate of France the bees generally swarm in the months of 
May and June. In the south, very thickly populated hives may 
furnish as many as four swarms in a season; but in the north, 
rarely more than one or two. But in some years swarming does 
not take place at all, for the want of a sufficient population. In 
such cases, the workers do not construct royal cells at the period 
when the eggs of the males are laid, and the swarming is put 
off till the following spring. It occasionally happens that a hive, 
although full of bees, cannot make up its mind to send out a 
swarm, and also that the hives thinly populated send out abundant 
swarms. ‘There are, then, other causes than the excess of population 
which exercise an influence on this annual crisis in the life of bees. 
The first swarm is always led by the old queen; if other swarms 
succeed, it is the young females lately hatched who lead the way. 
There are many signs which announce that a swarm is going to 
take place. The appearance of the males, or drones, is one of the 
first signs. Another sign, but far from being infallible, is the 
excess of the population in the common home. The bees seem 
then to find themselves so ill at ease in their over-crowded hive, 
that part of them go out and keep outside, either on the stand 
