28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN 



thousands of whom, being my departed 

 mother's last deposited eggs, would not ma- 

 ture for twenty-one and thirty-six days, the 

 Maids and Chaps respectively. Sometimes 

 I heard "Bosh, Bosh" again. Then the 

 noise of that vast aggregation outside in the 

 air grew fainter, and fainter, until I could 

 discern no more of it, and my intuition told 

 me that the swarm had settled on some small 

 tree, perhaps only about twenty feet dis- 

 tant from the old hive. As I have learned 

 about some other people who migrated from 

 one land to another after having secured 

 food, utensils and valuables to provision 

 themselves for their journey, so now our bee 

 people did this same thing on a miniature 

 scale, and with just as much certainty of 

 success in their trustful undertaking. For, 

 every individual Maid had carried a honey 

 sack completely filled with honey, fpr the 

 emergency of secreting wax for new honey- 

 combs, and of awaiting, maybe, the pleasure 

 of some kindly disposed man or woman who 

 would supply the swarm a new hive with 



