20 LONGEVITY OF BEES. 
of so short duration, a large majority of them close their existence 
before the next spring, ‘at which time the colony is found to contain 
no more bees than it did the previous spring; and this increase and 
decrease in numbers will continue yearly while the colony exists, and 
their numbers will remain just about the same for years. 
“Like leaves on trees, the race of bees is found 
Now green in youth, now withering on the gronnd : 
Another race the spring or fall supplies— 
They droop successive, and successive rise.’” 
I have known several instances where bees have been put into 
. large palaces, and rooms in buildings, fitted for the purpose, where so 
much space was given that swarming has been prevented entirely, 
.and the bees permitted to increase for years, to any extent in their 
\ 
power; but in no case have they increased in numbers to exceed that 
of a good colony just previous to its throwing off a first swarm. I 
was called upon in the summer of 1851, to transfer a colony into one 
of my hives from an old bee-palace (as they are called in Ohio). The 
bees had occupied it for fifteen years, during which time they had 
never thrown off a swarm; and at the time I transferred them, which 
was the last of June, there were no more bees than in a colony of the 
preceding year that had not thrown off a swarm that season. 
In the month of September, 1851, I transferred a portion of a good 
strong colony of bees into my observatory hive, leaving the queen 
with the remainder of the bees in the old hive. This I accomplished 
by removing the old hive a short distance, and placing the observa- 
tory hive where it formerly stood. I had previously taken from an- 
other hive a piece of comb containing brood, and placed it in the 
observatory hive; not for the purpose of trying the experiment of 
raising a queen from a worker egg, but to experiment in feeding, and 
observe their operations while destitute of a queen, and also how long 
they would exist in that situation. I will here state that I had no 
expectation of their raising a queen from the brood that I had sup- 
plied them with, as it was so far advanced in a state of maturity that 
it afforded them no means of accomplishing that object; yet they had 
by the next morning laid the foundations of three royal cells, in the 
portions of the combs containing the youngest brood. On each of these 
