LOSS OP THE QUEEN. 263 



.make a fatal mistake, and are destroyed, when attempting to 

 enter the wrong hive. 



This accounts for the fact that ignorant bee-keepers, with 

 forlorn and rickety hives, no two of which look just alike, 

 are sometimes more successful than those whose hives are of 

 the best construction. The former— unless their hives are 

 excessively crowded— lose but few queens, while the latter lose 

 them in almost exact proportion to the taste and skill which 

 induced them to make their hives of uniform size, shape and 

 color (356). 



503. We first learned the full extent of the danger of 

 crowded apiaries, in tl;e Summer of 1854. To protect our 

 hives against extremes of heat and cold, they were ranged, 

 side by side, over a trench, so that, through ventilators in 

 their bottom-boards, they might receive, in Summer, a cooler, 

 and in Winter, a much warmer air, than the external atmos- 

 phere. By this arrangement— which failed entirely to answer 

 its design— many of our colonies became queenless, and we 

 soon ascertained under what circumstances young queens are 

 ordinarily lost. 



From the great uniformity of the hives in size, shape, 

 color, and height, it was next to impossible for a young queen 

 to be sure of returning to her hive. The difficulty was in- 

 creased, from the fact that the ground before the trench was 

 free from bushes or trees, and no hive— except the two end 

 ones, which did not lose their queens — could have its location 

 remembered, from its. relative position to some external object. 

 Most of the hives thus placed, which had young queens, be- 

 came queenless, although supplied with other queens, again 

 and again; and many, even of the workers, were constantly 

 entering hives adjoining their own. 



504. If a traveler should be carried, in a dark night, to 

 a hotel in a strange city, and on rising in the morning, should 

 find the streets filled with buildings precisely like it, he would 

 be able to return to his proper place, only by previously 

 ascertaining its number, or by counting the houses between it 

 and the corner. Such a numbering faculty, however, was not 



