THE MYSTERY OF THE SWARM 185 
ashamed. If we may conceive the issue of a 
swarm to be a freak of ancestral memory, the 
sudden irresistible impulse to follow an old racial 
habit, long obsolete, it is not difficult to account for 
the obvious change of mind that has now come 
over the absconding host. Packed within the hive 
in a feverish, surging multitude, disabilities were 
not self-evident as they are now, tried in the light 
of day. 
“Violent delights have violent ends, 
And, in their triumph, die.’ 
And now there is the morrow to be thought of: 
life to be rendered possible in all odds of weather; 
a home to be made; the queen-mother to. be 
sheltered—she, the one remaining possession of 
the crowd, beggared now, but so rich a moment 
before. There is hard work ahead, enough to 
sober the giddiest among them. The madness 
has gone as, quickly as it came, and now the 
honey-bee is to show herself a reasoning creature, 
if never before. 
It is believed by most bee-keepers that a swarm 
selects the site of its future dwelling some time 
before the expedition starts, in many cases several 
days earlier. An old trick among cottagers is to 
place out empty hives in their gardens, and these 
not uncommonly attract errant swarms. A few 
bees are seen cruising about, and subjecting the 
hives to a close scrutiny. These pioneer bees 
