132 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



If the hive be displaced, therefore, many bees will lose 

 their way, except in the case of their having been carried far 

 from their former home, and finding the country to be com- 

 pletely transformed that they had grown to know perfectly 

 within a radius of two or three miles ; for then, if care be 

 taken to warn them, by means of a little gangway connecting 

 with the alighting-board at the entrance to the hive, that 

 some change has occurred, they will at once proceed to seek 

 new bearings and create fresh landmarks. 



69 



And now let us return to the city that is being repeopled, 

 where myriad cradles are incessantly opening, and the solid 

 walls even appear to be moving. But this city still lacks a 

 queen. Seven or eight curious structures arise from the centre 

 of one of the combs ; and remind us, scattered as they are over 

 the surface of the ordinary cells, of the circles and protuber- 

 ances that appear so strange on the photographs of the moon. 

 They are a species of capsule, contrived of wrinkled wax or 

 of inclined glands, hermetically sealed, which fills the place 

 of three or four workers' cells. As a rule they are grouped 

 around the same point, and a numerous guard keep watch, 

 with singular vigilance and restlessness, over this region that 

 seems instinct with an indescribable prestige. For here the 

 mothers are formed. In each one of these capsules, before the 

 swarm departs, an egg will be placed by the mother, or more 

 probably — though as to this we have no certain knowledge — by 

 one of the workers ; an egg that she will have taken from sorne 



