ITALIAN QUEEN BEE 27 



brace themselves to obey some exhortation 

 to remain. Tumbling, boiling, racing, buzz- 

 ing, hurrying over each others' bodies, that 

 mass simply poured itself out, even spilling 

 itself in writhing fashion on the ground in 

 front, in the impetuous impulse to obey the 

 Creator's command through the leadership 

 of my mother. As rapidly as these thou- 

 sands reached the door of the hive, or fell 

 on the ground below, they took wing. Zig- 

 zagging, circling back and forth, darting in 

 bee-lines here and there as if wild, angry, 

 exultant, or in bewildered, hopeless confu- 

 sion, two hundred thousand wings were 

 making a strange music in the air just above 

 the hive, that I could distinctly hear, still 

 confined to my cell as I was. Frequently 

 a buzzing at the entrance and scratching 

 feet told of the return of some who had been 

 warned to come back and keep watch over 

 our brood of forty thousand young Chaps 

 and Maids, who were in all stages of de- 

 velopment in their cells scattered through 

 ten frames of comb in the brood nest, many 



