Zoology. 1029 
ZOOLOGY. 
A PROBABLE Case oF Instinct at FAULT IN Bees.—While 
staying for a day at a ranch in the valley of South Platte, in 
Colorado, a few years ago, I found some excellent honey served 
upon the ranchman’s table. He informed me that he had under- 
numbers, and while flowers were yet abundant his hives became 
well nigh depopulated, and few or no new swarms were ever pro- 
uced. Upon opening some of the forsaken hives he found them 
filled with comb, nearly or quite every cell of which was filled with 
honey. The hives seemed to be in excellent condition, and he 
found no trace of the presence of any enemy of the bees. : 
_ I examined one of the opened hives, which yet contained a por- 
tion of the honey in its comb, and so far as I could see, its condition 
entirely agreed with the ranchman’s statements. I also observed 
that his hives had been placed in the midst of many acres which 
were mostly covered with a natural and luxurious growth of the 
plant Clione integrifolia Torrey & Gray, from the flowers of which 
the bees had evidently obtained their honey. 
Suggestions as probably indicating the cause of the rapid extinction 
the bees could obtain the honey with remarkably little labor. 
Packard states that the life of working bees of the first brood of 
the season is about six weeks. Some apiarists think that durin 
the season of most active labor the life of those bees does not ex 
