168 THE bee-keepbr's guide ; 



their new home, and fly too rapidly to look as they go, woutd 

 arg-ue that a home is pre-empted, at least, before the cluster is 

 dissolved. The fact that the cluster remains sometimes for 

 hours — even over night — and at other times for a brief period, 

 hardly more than fifteen minutes, would lead us to infer that 

 the bees cluster while waiting- for a new home to be found. 

 Yet, why do bees sometimes alight after flying a long distance, 

 as did a first swarm one season upon our College grounds ? 

 Was their journey long, so that they mlist needs stop to rest, 

 or were they flying at random, not knowing whither they were 

 going 7 This matter is no longer a matter of question. I now 

 know of several cases where bees have been seen to clean out 

 their new home the day previous to swarming. In each case 

 the swarm came and took possession of the new home the day 

 after the house-cleaning. The reason of clustering is no doubt 

 to give the queen a rest before her long flight. Her muscles 

 of flight are all " soft," as the horsemen would say. She 

 must find this a severe ordeal, even after the rest. 



If for any reason the queen should fail to join the bees, 

 and rarely when she is among them, possibly because she finds 

 she is unfit for the journey, they will, after having clustered, 

 return to their old home. They may unite with another swarm, 

 and enter another hive. Many writers speak of clustering as 

 rare unless the queen is with the swarm. A large experience 

 convinces me that the reverse is quite the case. 



The youngest bees will remain in the old hive, to which 

 those bees which are abroad in quest of stores will return. 

 Most of these, however, may be in time to join the emigrants. 



The presence of young bees on the ground immediately 

 after a swarm has issued — those with flight too feeble to join 

 the rovers — will often mark the previous home of the swarm. 

 Mr. Doolittle confines a teaoupful, or less, of the bees when he 

 hives the swarm, and after the colony is hived he throws the 

 confined bees up in the air, when he says they will at once go 

 to the hive from which the swarm issued. 



Soon, in seven days, often later if Italians — Mr. E. E. 

 Hasty says in from six to seventeen days — the first queen will 

 come forth from her cell, and in two or three days she will, or 

 may, lead a new swarm forth ; but before she does this, the 

 peculiar note, known as the piping of the queen, may be heard. 



