220 ARTIFICIAL SWARMING, 



until at length, if they can find the means of raising a new 

 queen, or one is already there, they make up their minds 

 that if this is not home, it not only looks like it, hut stands 

 just where their home ought to be, and is at all events the 

 only home they are likely to get. No douht they often feel 

 that a very hard bargain has been imposed upon them, but 

 they generally are wise enough to make the best of it. 



There is one trait in the character of bees, for which I 

 feel, not merely admiration, but the most profound respect. 

 Such is their indomitable energy and perseverance, that un- 

 der circumstances apparantly hopeless, they will still labor 

 to the utmost, to retrieve their losses, and sustain the sinking 

 State. So long as they have a queen, or any prospect of 

 raising one, they struggle most vigorously against impending 

 ruin, and never give up, unless their condition is absolutely 

 desperate. In one of my observing hives, I once had a 

 colony of bees, the whole of which might have been spread 

 out on my two hands, busy at work in raising a new queen, 

 from a small piece of brood comb. For two long weeks, 

 they adhered with unfailing perseverance and industry, to 

 their forlorn hope : until at last, one of the two queens which 

 they raised, came fourth, and destroyed the other white still 

 in her cell. The bees had now dwindled away to less than 

 half their original number, and the new queen had wings so 

 imperfect that she was unable to fly. I watched their pro- 

 ceedings with great interest ; they actually paid very unusual 

 attention to this crippled queen, treating her with almost as 

 much regard as though she were fertile. In the course of a 

 week, there were not more than a dozen bees left in the hive, 

 and in a few days more, I missed the queen, and saw only 

 a few disconsolate wretches crawling over the deserted comb ! 



Shame on the faint-hearted and cowardly of our own race, 

 who, if overtaken by calamity, instead of nobly breasting tlje 



