AUTOCRAT OF THE BEE-GARDEN 195 
in some hole or crevice, until, in the warm spring 
days, each comes out to start a new and separate 
home. Well, perhaps the honey-bees did much the 
same thing long ago, when they were all mother- 
bees, in the time when the world was young. And 
perhaps the swarm-fever in a hive to-day is naught 
but a kind o’ memory of this, still working, though 
its main use is gone. The books here will tell ye 
o’ many other things brought about by swarming, 
right an’ good enough with the old-fashioned hives. 
Yet that gainsays nothing. Nature allers works 
double an’ treble handed in all her dealings. Her 
every stroke tells far and wide, like the thousand 
ripples you make when you pitch a stone in a pond.” 
