PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



137 



larger than the others : these last, upon dissection, appear to 

 have no eggs ready for laying, while the former, which is a 

 powerful recommendation, is usually full of them. Eggs are 

 commonly found in the cells twenty-four hours after swarm- 

 ing, or at the latest two or three days. 



You may think, perhaps, that the bees which emigrate 

 from the parent hive are the youth of the colony ; but this is 

 not the case, for bees of all ages unite to form the swarms. 

 The numbers of which they consist vary much. Reaumur 

 calls 12,000 a moderate swarm ; and he mentions one which 

 amounted to more than three times that number (40,000). A 

 swarm seldom or never takes place except when the sun 

 shines, and the air is calm. Sometimes, when every thing 

 seems to prognosticate swarming, a cloud passing over the 

 sun calms the agitation ; and afterwards, upon his shining 

 forth again, the tumult is renewed, keeps augmenting, and 

 the swarm departs. 1 On this account the confinement of the 

 queens, before related, is observed to be more protracted in 

 bad weather. 



The longest interval between the swarms is from seven to 

 nine days, which usually is the space that intervenes between 

 the first and the second. The next flies sooner, and the last 

 sometimes departs the day after that which preceded it. 

 Fifteen or eighteen days, in favourable weather, are usually 

 sufficient for throwing the four swarms. The old queen, 

 when she takes flight with the first swarm, leaves plenty of 

 brood in the cells, which soon renew the population. 2 



It is not without example, though it rarely happens, that 

 a swarm conducted by the old queen increases so much in the 

 space of three weeks as to send forth a new colony. Being 

 already impregnated, she is in a condition to oviposit as soon 

 as there are cells ready to receive her eggs ; and an all-wise 

 Providence has so ordered it, that at this time she lays only 

 such as produce workers. And it is the first employment of 

 her subjects to construct cells for this purpose. 3 The young 



1 Bees are generally thought to foresee the state of the weather : but they are 

 not always right in their prognostics ; for Reaumur witnessed a swarm, which 

 after leaving the hive at half-past one o'clock were overtaken by a very heavy 

 shower at three. 



2 Huber, i. 271. 3 ibid. i. 305. 



