OP MANAGING BEES. 81 



This experiment clearly shows that there is no arbitrary- 

 government in a hive of bees, nor domineering power in the 

 queen. Notwithstanding their sovereign was dead, yet the 

 bees commenced making comb immediately, and continued 

 their labors with perfect regularity as long as the queen re- 

 mained in the hive ; the queen being attached to the string in 

 its centre, and the two ends of the string being confined at 

 the top of the hive a dozen inches or more apart, two legs of 

 a perfect right angle was formed, with her highness at the 

 junction of its two legs; at the same time, the common work- 

 ing bees were constantly climbing the string, which kept the 

 lifeless carcass of their venerated sovereign in constant motion. 

 During the whole time of the process in this part of the ex- 

 periment, both day and night, there were about a dozen 

 working bees which stood around her majesty, with their 

 heads directly towards her, seemingly in amazement, or hold- 

 ing a splemn council ; at the same time, there were other 

 bees showing their persevering industry, by endeavoring to 

 loosen the string by cutting it off with their teeth so as to 

 liberate their mistress from her unnatural confinement. Now, 

 whether it w^s the intention of the bees to cut off the string to 

 liberate their sovereign, and see whether she was living or 

 not, or to remove the string as a nuisance to them, or drag 

 their dead queen out of the hive, is more than we can deter- 

 mine; but one thing is certain: by the unremitted perseve- 

 rance of the bees, on the 25th day of July, twenty days after 

 hiving them, they did succeed in loosening the string, and 

 the whole, string, pin, and lifeless carcass of their emaciated 

 and dried-up sovereign, was found dragged out all together at 

 the mouth of the hive, and the bees stopped work. 



Another fact is demonstrated by this experiment, the know- 

 ledge of which we think to be of prime importance to all who 

 are engaged in the cultivation of bees, which is this : no 



