bi AN EASY METHOD 



/cluster in a body, and remain several minutes for her, when 

 we stood very near them, at the time they were alighting. 

 The queen is usually rather shy, and seems inclined to con- 

 ceal herself from human observation, extremely timid, and 

 a little jealous of being caught. 



In this experiment, the queen was suspended on one side 

 of the hive against the glass : the bees Dy accident clustered 

 in a body on the opposite side of the hive : some twenty or 

 thirty minutes after the bees were hived, we found many 

 of them clustered and clustering about the entrance of the 

 hive, on its outside. On opening the door, we observed but 

 two bees that had found their sovereign. We immediately 

 brushed all the bees into the hive and confined them therein, 

 with the expectation that, when the bees found their queen 

 was not with them, nor any probability of her coming, they 

 would grow restless, *and run around the hive to find their 

 way out, and would come across their sovereign : they did 

 so, and in the course of an hour, we found her whole colony 

 clustered around her. 



Now, as we had observed all the materia! fiicts in the case 

 for twenty days, and observed also their perfect idleness and 

 inactivity during the whole time of ten days after the bees 

 had cleared the hive of their lifeless queen, we determined 

 to let the swarm perish in their own way. But, as we were 

 looking into the hive through the glass, we discovared a 

 moth miller attempting to deposit her eggs among the comb, 

 without the least resistance on the part of the bees. This 

 discovery inspired our mind with new resolutions. That the 

 bees must inevitably perish by the njoth,* that "monster in 

 gaudy hue," was so repugnant to our feelings, that we deter- 

 mined to supply them with anther queen. But the season 

 had already advanced to August 5th, full two weeks after 

 the close of the s'^arming-season, so that nq y'JiOJg queens 



