BIETH OS A BEE — SWAEMING. 195 



worm, and carrying them out of the hive; with equal care 

 they remove the little particles of wax which may have fallen 

 into the cell when the lid was pierced. Other bees tear away 

 all that remains of this lid. In a word, they restore the 

 cells to a condition to receive a fresh egg, or to become a 

 magazine for honey. The young bee enters at once upon its 

 functions ; two hours after its birth, you could not recognise 

 it but by its colour, which is rather grey, whilst the others 

 become reddish as they grow old. As soon as its wings are 

 smooth and shining, it goes out, flies away, and does not 

 return tiU laden. But not only one bee at a time is thus 

 born, more than a hundred issue from their cells, on the 

 same day; so that, at the end of a few weeks, the hive is 

 over-peopled. 



One morning, you observe a kind of revolution. The 

 activity which reigned round the hive has suddenly disap- 

 peared. A few bees only come ou+ and return, lightly laden. 

 A colony is about to separate itself from the parent hive, and 

 go and seek other penates. About ten o'clock in the morning, 

 when the sun shines brightly, a great buzzing is heard in the 

 hive ; some bees fly out in a tumultuous state — they precede 

 the old queen. She soon appears; she is much longer and 

 larger than the working bees; her wings scarcely extend over 

 half the length of her body; her hind-feet are not hollowed 

 into the shape of a spoon ; she has no necessity for travelling 

 far, and brings home no burdens. She is not destined to 

 work. Her particular part is to be, literally, the mother of 

 her people. 



At no great distance, the first bees that come out go and 

 heap themselves up in large clusters around the branch of 

 some tree ; the queen comes amongst them : then all the bees, 

 before spread about in the air, come and cling around her. 

 Most of these are young workers, who follow the fortunes of 

 their royal mother; some old ones, however, of a restless 

 character, come out with the colony and abandon the metro- 

 polis. There they remain assembled for more than a quarter 

 of an hour, and sometimes much longer; then they resume 

 their flight in search of a more convenient establishment. 

 It is during these moments of hesitation and immobility, that 

 the swarm is easily swept entire into a hive in which, finding 



