Insects 383 



taken away before filling the royal cells, the 

 workers enlarge ordinary cells, take out the 

 bee-bread, put in royal jelly, and get queens 

 quite up to standard as a result. 



It is the queen-bee, young or old, who leads 

 out a new swarm. If several queens hatch 

 simultaneously, there is an interval of chaos 

 in the hive, much crawling back and forth, 

 humming, buzzing, and stinging. At such 

 times bees are most difficult of approach. 

 By and by, occultly, affairs seem to adjust 

 themselves. A swarm goes off, the queen 

 settles in place, and the workers in mass take 

 the superfluous queens and kill them, then 

 drag them outside the hive. Bees are neater 

 than wax in their housekeeping. They permit 

 no spilled honey to remain, neither any chips 

 of any sort. They mass themselves thickly, 

 and with fluttering wings fan out all sorts of 

 trash. 



Since the queen is the mother, stocks of 

 bees can be changed completely in two years 

 by the introduction of new queens. Italian 

 bees are said to sting much less, and make 

 more honey, hence are high in favor. Bee 

 eggs have the curious property of partheno- 

 genesis — that is to say, they will hatch even 

 if there happens to have been no drone in the 

 hive. 



Honey betrays its origin even more than 



