164 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
the bee. It has a multiplicity of parts, and is 
obviously designed to convey a great variety of 
sounds. The wings also produce tones that run 
up or down in the scale, according to their rate of 
oscillation; and from them comes the sibilant 
note usually called buzzing. Listening to the hive- 
music at any season of the year, it is impossible to 
resist the thought that bees not only hold indi- 
vidual communication by means of these infinitely 
varied sounds, but that the general note given out 
by the multitude unerringly expresses the state of 
affairs within the hive for the time being. A 
prosperous stock voices its busy contentment in a 
way impossible to misunderstand. It is a deep, 
blithe, resonant sound, like the steady running of 
well-oiled machinery, each wheel adding its own 
whirring melody to the general theme. Weak or 
famishing colonies give out a wavering, intermittent 
note, the very voice of complaint and fear for the 
future. When a hive has lost its queen, a capable 
bee-master should have no difficulty in divining 
the trouble by listening at the hive-entrance. A 
queenless stock is all clamour and the hubbub of 
divided counsels. The ordinary rich reverbera- 
tion of labour stops, and a sound of panic goes to 
and fro in the hive unceasingly. If a hive be 
quietly opened, and its queen removed with little 
disturbance, it may be some time before the bees 
discover their loss. Some colonies experimented 
with in this way realise their deprivation im- 
