ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 219 



they find that some of the conditions necessary for success, 

 are wanting. Either there may not be a sufficient number of 

 wax-workers, to enlarge the cells, or a sufficient number of 

 nurses to take charge of the larvEe ; or perhaps the cells 

 contain only young wax-workers which cannot be developed 

 into queens, or only young nurses which may be in the same 

 predicament. 



Ifany of my readers imagine that it is an easy work, careful- 

 ly to experiment, in order to establish facts upon the solid basis 

 of complete demonstration, let them attempt to prove or dis- 

 prove the truth of any or all of my conjectures upon this 

 single topic. They will probably find the task more difficult 

 than to blot over whole quires or reams of paper with care- 

 less assertions. 



All operations of any kind which interfere in the very 

 least, with the natural mode of forming colonies, are best 

 performed in the swarming season : or at least, at a time 

 when the bees are breeding freely, and are able to bring in 

 large stores of honey from the fields. At other times, they 

 are very precarious, and unless under the management of 

 persons who have great experience, will in most cases, end 

 in nothing but vexatious losses and disappointments. 



It is quite amusing to see how bees act, when they find, 

 on their return from foraging abroad, that their hive has been 

 moved, and another put in its place. If the new hive is pre- 

 cisely similar to their own, in size and outward appearance, 

 they enter it at once, as though all was right ; but, in a few 

 moments, rush out in violent agitation, imagining that 

 by a prodigious mistake they have entered the wrong place. 

 They now take wing again, in order to correct their blun- 

 der, but find to their increasing surprise, that they had 

 previously directed their flight to the familiar spot ; again 

 they enter, and again they tumble out, in bewildered crov^ds. 



