BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
170 
Museum, with 200 persons present, having less than 
half-a-dozen veils between them, almost every opera- 
tion of the apiary has been performed, with one or 
two stings, all told ; but I have been at hand to 
prevent wrong steps, or the results would have been 
far different. 
Let us close with one reflection. How wondrous 
is this swarming instinct in the bee, with its attendant 
recognition of suitable conditions of population, 
wealth, and prospect — with its orderly execution, in 
correct sequence, of drone - production and queen- 
raising; and then, when all is ready, and the elements 
invite by their calmness, and the mysterious lot has 
been cast determining who shall go and who shall 
stay, the immediate change in the bearing of queen 
and every emigrant worker : the former, always 
hitherto hiding in the darkness, now coming forth to 
sport in the sunbeam ; the latter, that have striven 
with such devotion to till the honey-cells, now becoming 
robbers in their own hive — for their old love is for- 
gotten, and they turn their backs upon the house 
of their nativity, and the home for which they have 
lived and laboured, not even bestowing upon it a 
backward glance as they sail away. But even now 
beautiful unselfishness marks every movement, for 
they go to face difficulty, and toil in the founding 
of a new settlement, so that the mother and more 
favoured sisters may cause the race to multiply 
exceedingly. 
