FAMINE THE CHIEF CAUSE OF MORTALITY OF BEES. 331 



examining the interior of the hive, the death of the queen 

 may take place, and the only chance of ascertaining the fact 

 would be finding the royal corpse on the pedestal of the 

 hive. We never could discover the actual fate of those bees 

 who desert the hive on the decease of the queen, for we have 

 frequently known them to desert it, and leave behind them 

 an ample stock of provisions. We have frequently conjec- 

 tured that they introduce themselves into other hives, which 

 can be easily effected, when the bees, grouped between the 

 combs, are comparatively off their guard, as to the intrusion 

 of strangers, who may establish themselves between the 

 vacant combs, before the native inhabitants entertain any 

 suspicion of the accession of numbers with which chance 

 has favoured them. Whether the bees leave the hive in 

 concert, or individually, is a subject which has excited the 

 attention of apiarians, but no satisfactory result has been 

 obtained. 



The most serious and frequent cause of the mortality of 

 bees is undoubtedly famine ; but severely ought the bee 

 master to be censured, who permits his bees to die for want 

 of food ; and yet we hesitate not to affirm, that it is the 

 cause of the loss of a greater number of hives, than any 

 other calamity, which is natural to them. It forms an 

 essential part of the duty of every apiarian to weigh his 

 hives at the close of the season ; and on ascertaining the 

 weight, to be guided in his opinion as to the quantity of 

 food in the hive by the oldness or the newness of it. A 

 new hive that weighs twenty pounds will probably be richer 

 in honey than an old hive that weighs thirty ; and this 

 arises from the superabundance of bee bread, which gene- 

 rally abounds in old hives, but of which a very small 

 quantity is to be found in a new one. It may be taken as 

 an established rule, that it is almost useless to attempt to 

 preserve a hive during the winter, the weight of which does 

 not exceed ten pounds. A hive of fifteen pounds may be 

 p 6 



