THE BEE NATION. 225 



comb and a honey-table hung out, within which is the new 

 queen, in a bee-cage and placed on a brood-comb. Many of 

 the bees collecting honey, which had flown and were still 

 flying from the hive taken away, return to the fresh hive, 

 because it is on the stand to which they are accustomed and 

 which is well known to them. But the moment they fly in, 

 they at once become aware of the great change. They stop, 

 do not know where they are, come out of the hole again 

 without depositing their loads, fly off, look most carefully 

 round the stand to assure themselves that they have made 

 no mistake, and go in once more when convinced that they 

 are at the right place. The same thing is repeated over and 

 over again, until the bees at last bow to the incompre- 

 hensible and unavoidable, lay down their loads and set to 

 work at those tasks made necessary by the new arrangements 

 of the hive. But as all the newly arriving bees behave in 

 similar fashion, the disturbance lasts until late in the evening, 

 and the uncertainty and anxiety of the bees is so great that 

 the bee-master cannot contemplate them without deep 

 sympathy. Night, however, lightens their trouble ; they 

 learn to yield to the inevitable, and although the disturbance 

 has not quite ceased by the following day yet the affairs of 

 the new colony begin to get into order. By the third day 

 everything is regular ; the bees regard themselves as the 

 rightful inmates of the new dwelling, this being shown by 

 the fact that they no longer yield free passage to members 

 of their former home which had flown away, but send them 

 back as unauthorised intruders. The caged queen can be 

 set free from her prison very soon, as a rule after four-and- 

 twenty hours, for the feeling of the first-comers that they 

 have no right to the new dwelling and have made some in- 

 explicable mistake and cannot get right again, does not allow 

 them to experience any hostility towards the imprisoned 

 queen. They probably consider themselves as merely on 

 sufferance, and feel that they should be grateful that no 

 action is taken against them for their illegal entry, as 

 generally happens in bee experience." 



Who can deny that in this whole remarkable behavior of 

 the bees a complete understanding of a changed situation 

 is betrayed, and man himself could not show it better nor 

 more clearly. The same comprehension and prudent fore- 

 sight in an unusual situation are manifested in the following 



