162 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
pable of indefinite enlargement, therefore want of room 
does not cause emigration ;—but bees being confined to 
a given space, which they possess not the means of en- 
larging,—to avoid the ill effects resulting from being too 
much crowded, when their population exceeds a certain 
limit, they must necessarily emigrate. Sometimes—for 
instance, when wasps have got into a hive—the bees will 
leave it, in order to fly from an inconvenience or enemy 
which they cannot otherwise avoid ; but it does not very 
often happen that they wholly desert a hive. 
Apiarists tell us that, in this country, the best season 
for swarming is from the middle of May to the middle 
of June; but swarms sometimes occur so early as the 
beginning of April, and as late as the middle of August?. 
The first swarm, as I before observed, is led by the 
reigning queen, and takes place when she is so much re- 
duced in size, in consequence of the number of eggs she 
has laid, (for previously to oviposition her gravid body 
is so heavy that she can scarcely drag it along,) as to en- 
able her to fly with ease. The most indubitable sign 
that a hive is preparing to swarm,—so says Reaumur, 
—is when on a sunny morning, the weather being fa- 
vourable to their labours, few bees go out-of a hive, from 
which on the preceding day they had issued in great 
numbers, and little pollen is collected. This circum- 
stance, he observes, must be very embarrassing to one 
who attempts to explain all their proceedings upon prin- 
ciples purely mechanical. Does it not prove, he asks, 
that all the inhabitants of'a hive, or almost all, are aware 
4 Keys On Bees, 76. 
