bee-keeper's manual. 225 



will do very "well. The principal objection that can be 

 brought against this kind of floor-board, is the liability 

 of the bees to communicate with each other, when they 

 cluster out in great numbers. When hives are set a 

 foot or eighteen inches apart, which is the usual dis- 

 tance, the bees, during very warm weather, will vacate 

 their hives, and spread out to the right and left, so as to 

 meet the members of the adjoining families, and they 

 frequently get so mixed, that they enter the wrong hive 

 and perish. A bee seems to lose all knowledge of the 

 position of its own home, except when on the wing. If 

 they happen to cross the dividing line, between their 

 own and a neighboring hive, they lose all recollection 

 of having thus passed the boundary, and the nearest 

 hive receives them ; but their mistake is found out in- 

 stantly, yet it is often too late to retreat. It is curious 

 to perceive how the truant bees suffer themselves to be 

 encircled and held prisoners. A half dozen bees will 

 surround a single one, showing no deadly hostility, un- 

 less the stranger attempt to fly away, when it is dis- 

 patched forthwith. On an occasion of witnessing an 

 occurrence of this natui'e, I stood watching the move- 

 ments of a couple of workers, that held another worker 

 prisoner. They offered no violence until the stranger 

 attempted to rise on the wing, when it was suddenly 

 seized by ope of its captors, and stung between the rings 

 of the abdomen. The next moment it lay quivering in 

 death. 



On refering to page 218, the reader will perceive 

 small divisions between the hives in the cut. These 

 10* 



