190 DEPARTURE OF A SWARM. 



from any malicious or vindictive disposition; but that a 

 reconnoitring party had been despatched to ascertain the 

 state of the weather, and finding it not exactly suitable for 

 her majesty to make her first appearance before the broad 

 face of heaven, they, with a very affectionate consideration 

 for her safety, determined to keep her a prisoner until the 

 weather should become so genial as to admit of her majesty 

 leaving the hive, without the risk of damaging her beautiful 

 person. Now, it must be observed, that this is a discovery, 

 for which Mr. Huber takes great credit to himself, for he 

 says, that as the bad weather might continue for several 

 days, during which the young queens might have arrived at 

 maturity, and all of them have left their cells, the conse- 

 quence would be that duels and combats would be raging 

 night and day, and of course no swarms would be produced, 

 as only the victorious queen would be remaining in the 

 hive; therefore, he continues, it is a wise disposition of 

 nature to ordain, that the bees shall keep the young queens 

 prisoners, until the weather and other circumstances admit 

 of the swarm leaving the hive. 



To follow Mr. Huber through his history of the birth of 

 his six queens would be to fill our pages with a series of 

 the wildest extravagancies and the most absurd fictions, 

 which ever polluted a work, professing to be the history of 

 a living creature. To those, however, who wish to experience 

 to what extent the vagrant fancy of an individual can carry 

 him, we refer them to page 193, et seq. of Huber's work, 

 or to the transcript of his absurdities in the pages of the 

 Insect Architecture, the History of the Hive Bee, published 

 by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and 

 the Naturalist's Library. 



The departure of a swarm is one of the most gratifying 

 sights to an apiarian, and it well repays him for many hours 

 of anxious watching. The whole hive appears in a state of 

 the greatest commotion ; the bees seem as if some powerful 



