74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN 



the excellence of the bees, the season, the 

 location, and the care given them. 



I had to be "introduced" to the colony in 

 America, which had been made ready for 

 me by removing its Queen, and leaving it 

 queenless for forty-eight hours. Discovery 

 of their loss, helplessness, would facili- 

 tate their willingness to accept me. But 

 caution had to be observed, and so this is 

 what they did: I and my companions, in 

 the cage, were suspended in the hive be- 

 tween two of the brood frames, spread some- 

 what to make room for it, the design being 

 that, confined there, we should acquire the 

 colony scent. If this well understood pre- 

 caution had not been taken, we should all 

 have been instantly stung to death as ene- 

 mies. But left thus for forty-eight hours, 

 my Masters then opened the hive, saw that 

 the colonists were by this time peacefully 

 overspreading the cage, and looking into it 

 as if ready to welcome the Sovereign they 

 well enough discerned was so near to them 



