IV 



THE FOUNDATION OF A BEE COLONY 



If I were asked what I consider the most distinc- 

 tive characteristic of the hive-bee, I should say 

 " the cluster." In some respects bees resemble 

 other social insects very closely. They resemble 

 the ant in the permanence of their colonies and 

 in the division into three distinct types of 

 inhabitant. In the building of combs they can 

 be compared to the true wasps, but there is no 

 other society which is so literally bound together 

 as that of the hive-bee. The huge pear-shaped 

 cluster which forms round the queen when the 

 swarm settles after issuing from a hive is, for all 

 practical purposes, maintained for ever afterwards, 

 the only change taking place being the building 

 of combs through it and its expansion or contrac- 

 tion according to the temperature and the amount 

 of population. If we open an ant's nest, we find 

 galleries running in all directions and ants at 

 work in groups here and there. Not so with the 

 honey-bee. There are never in the hive any 

 outlying portions. However large the hive and 



however well provided with combs, the colony 



24 



