188 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
general rush for the daylight starts. Where a 
hive is much overcrowded there will already be 
a cluster of bees numbering many thousands 
packed tightly together on the alighting-board, 
and sometimes covering the whole face of the 
hive. But this mass melts away directly the 
swarming begins, the waiting bees taking wing all 
but simultaneously with the others. 
It was anciently believed that the queen led the 
swarm, but this view is not borne out by modern 
observation. As often as not half the bees are on 
the wing before she makes her appearance, and 
sometimes she is among the very latest to leave, 
or she may decide at the last moment not to go 
at all. In this case the bees do not cluster, but 
after a few minutes’ wild tarantelle in the sunshine 
they all troop back to the hive. 
When once the swarming-party has gone off, 
the old hive seems to settle down to its ordinary 
occupations as though nothing out of the way had 
happened. The congested state of affairs no 
longer exists, but otherwise the work of the hive 
is proceeding in the usual way. The bees left 
behind are mainly young workers who have not 
yet commenced foraging, but there is always a 
fair sprinkling of old workers and drones. Gener- 
ally the hive is queenless for the time being, the 
new queen not having yet broken from her cell. 
There may be four or five queen-cells in various 
stages of development, or rarely as many as a 
