18 HONEY BEES. 



alike, no difference in size, shape, color or action ; 

 — yet every bee of this vast number (which at some 

 seasons of the year would amount to more than six 

 hundred thousand bees) in these twenty hives 

 knows its own hive, and if let alone will not enter 

 any other, except it be for the purpose of securing 

 the honey therein for its own use, or in other words 

 to plunder and rob its neighbor. There is no in- 

 tercourse between swarms ; each is a separate colony 

 governed by a queen. If through mistake the sub- 

 jects of one enter the domain of another, a war of 

 extermination is commenced at once. To test this 

 point, I changed two hives so that they were re- 

 versed, the one occupying the place of the other. 

 This was done while the bees were out collecting 

 honey in a warm day. The first bees that entered 

 the hive were instantly killed, and this was kept up 

 until the hives were set in their proper places. 

 The ground in front of the hives was covered with 

 hundreds of dead bees. A bee is killed almost 

 instantly by the sting of another. 



The young bee on its first excursion from the 

 hive does not leave its home without precaution. 

 With a view to a safe return, it turns its head 

 towards its home, rises slow^ly on the wing, at first 

 describing a circle of only a few inches in diameter, 

 as it recedes slowly backward, seeming to so mark 

 every object surrounding the hive, as to enable it to 

 return and enter, without the slightest danger of en- 

 tering any other hive. Bees in Spring, in their first 

 flight, mark their location in this manner. After 

 the location has been thus marked, the bees leave 



