THE STORY OF THE SWARM 133 
into the round hole of fact goes on as merrily as 
ever. 
Students of bee-life, approaching the matter 
unencumbered by ancient postulates, find themselves 
face to face with many surprising things, which 
would seem unexplainable on any other hypothesis 
than that the bees are endowed with reason, and 
that of no mean order. 
Instinct implies invariability, a dead perfection of 
motive working blindly against all odds of circum- 
stance, and always succeeding in the main. But the 
very essence of reason, humanly speaking, is its 
imperfection and continual deviation both in motive 
and performance. Watching a swarm of bees from 
the moment of its issue from the hive, the first thing 
that strikes the unacademic observer is that most 
of the bees seem to have no notion at all as to what 
the furore is about. They are by no means the 
obedient items of a common inexorable purpose. 
They are more like a crowd of people running in a 
street, all agog with excitement and curiosity, but 
not one of them knowing the cause of the general 
stampede. Sometimes a stock of bees will give 
visible sign of the approach of a swarming-fit for 
several days before the swarm actually issues. 
But, as often as not, no such manifestation is given. 
The hive, at least to the unexpert eye, seems in its 
normal condition right up to the moment when the 
great emigration takes place. And then, as at a 
given signal, the work suddenly stops, and the bees 
pour out of the hive-entrance in a living stream, 
darkening the air for many yards round, the cloud 
of darting bees rising higher and higher, and 
spreading over a greater space with every 
