THE HONEY-BEE. 
139 
late habitation. There they hover for a moment, 
reeling backwards and forwards, while some of the 
body search in the vicinity for a tree or bush which 
may serve as a rallying-poiut for the emigrants. To 
this they repair by degrees, and provided their Queen 
has alighted there, all, or at least the greater part, 
crowd around, and form a dense group, sometimes 
rounded like a ball, sometimes clustered like a bunch 
of grapes, according to the nature of the resting-place 
they have fixed on. (Plate VII.) The Queen is 
not always foremost ; it is frequently, or rather 
generally, not till after the departure of a consider- 
able number of workers that she makes her appear- 
ance ; and when she does come, it is with a timid 
irresolute air, as if she were borne along, almost 
against her will, by the torrent that streams out of 
the hive, — for she often turns on the threshold, as if 
about to re-enter, and in fact frequently does so, but 
cannot long resist the opposing crowd.* 
The first swarm is invariably led off by the old 
Queen. This has been ascertained by actual obser- 
vation. The Queen leading off a first swarm in one 
year, has been marked by depriving her of one of 
her antenna:, and has been found at the head of a first 
swarm in the year following. This experiment has 
been so often repeated, and with results so uniform, as 
to put the fact beyond all doubt. Besides, in examin- 
ing those hives in which first swarms have been 
placed, eggs will be found in the cells on the second 
Feburier. 
