bee-keeper's manual. 295 



them, and on the approach of danger, their first impulse 

 is to be assured of the safety of their sovereign. We 

 take a rod and rap smartly on the hive. — The bees now 

 begin to run speedily over the combs — the excitement 

 increases, and they are now fully aware of the queen's 

 absence. Hark ! what a tumult and roar within ! How 

 eagerly they traverse the combs, as if in search of some- 

 thing. Six hours have now past, and the excitement is 

 dying away. Here in this cluster of bees, the rudiments 

 of a queen-cell are already laid, and within twenty-four 

 hours one of the larva of the unsealed cells will be re- 

 moved to it, and in about 12 days a queen will issue. 



If a strange queen should now be offered to them, they 

 would not receive her kindly ; but would cluster around 

 her in such numbers as to suffocate her, in all proba- 

 bility. But if we wait 24 hours, and then offer a new 

 sovereign, she would be welcome, and would be treated 

 with the respect due to royalty, since it requires 24 

 hours to cause a family of workers to forget their queen. 



On an occasion of endeavoring to unite two small 

 artificial swarms, where I was apprehensive that one of 

 them was without a queen, I attempted driving them out 

 by the aid of smoke, and the family that I supposed to 

 be without a queen, did possess one, and she rushed out 

 of the hive and alighted on the under side of the brim 

 of my hat ; I seized her, and placed her under a tumbler 

 until the next day, when I turned up a hive that con- 

 tained another artificial swarm, which, to all appear- 

 ances, had no queen ; and having laid the hive on its 

 side, I placed her majesty close up to the bees as they 



