142 Clustering and Selecting New Home. 
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, (they rarely fail to cluster) return to their old 
home. The youngest bees will remain in the old hive, to 
which those bees which are abroad in quest of stores will 
return. The presence of young bees on the ground imme- 
diately after a swarm has issued—those with flight too 
feeble to join the rovers—will often mark the previous 
home of theemigrants. Mr. Doolittle confines a tea-cupful 
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, the first queen 
will come forth from her cell, and in two or three days she 
will, or may, lead a new colony forth; but before she does 
this, the peculiar note, known as the piping of the queen, 
may be heard. This piping sounds like “peep,” “peep,” 
is shrill and clear, and can be plainly heard by placing the 
ear to the hive, nor would it be mistaken. This sound is 
Landois’s true voice as it is made even in the cell, and also 
by a queen whose wings are cut off. Cheshire thinks this 
sound is made by friction of the segments one upon the 
other as the queen movesthem. The newly hatched queen 
pipes in seven or eight hours after coming from the cell. 
She always pipes if a swarm is to issue, and if she pipes a 
second swarm will go unless weather or man interferes. 
The second swarm usually goes in from thirty-five to forty- 
five hours after the piping is heard. This piping of the 
liberated queen is followed by a lower, hoarser note, made 
by a queen still within the cell. This piping is best heard 
by placing the ear to the hive in the evening or early morn- 
