SWARMING AND HIVING. 143 



seldom trouble themselves to build any comb in it. If the 

 hive is so constructed as to permit inspection, I can tell by 

 a glance whether bees are disgusted with their new resi- 

 dence, and mean before long to forsake it. They not only 

 refuse to work with that energy so characteristic of a new 

 swarm, but they have a peculiar look which to the expe- 

 rienced eye at once proclaims the fact that they are most 

 unwilling tenants. Their very attitude, hanging as they do 

 ■with a sort of dogged or supercilious air, as though they 

 hated even so much as to touch their detested abode, is 

 equivalent to an open proclamation that they mean to be off. 

 My numerous experiments in attempting from the moment 

 of hiving, to make the bees work in observing hives exposed 

 to the full light of day, instead of keeping them as I now do, 

 in darkness for several days, have made me quite familiar 

 with all their graceless, do-nothing proceedings before their 

 departure. 



Bees sometimes abandon their hives very early in the 

 Spring, or late in the Summer or Fall. They exhibit all the 

 appearance of natural swarming ; but the^y leave, not be- 

 cause the population is crowded, but because it is either so 

 small, or the hive so destitute of supplies, that they are 

 discouraged, or driven to desperation. I once knew a colony 

 to leave the hive under such circumstances, on a spring-like 

 day in December! They seem to have a presentiment that 

 they must perish if they stay, and instead of awaiting the sure 

 approach of famine, they sally out to see if something cannot 

 be done to better their condition. 



^t first sight, it seems strange that so provident an insect 

 should not always select a suitable domicile before venturing 

 on so important a step as to abandon the old home. Often 

 before they are safely housed again, they are exposed to 

 powerful winds and drenching rains, which beat down and 

 destroy many of their number. 



