34 « 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
precisely as though no change had been made in her 
abode? The reasons appear to me to be these: First, 
her half-hour’s solitude and fast make her anxious 
both for company and food. When she is inserted, 
instead of exhibiting nervousness and suspicion, any 
society is welcomed in preference to lonely seclusion, 
and her keen appetite brings her boldly to her 
new-found associates, asking hospitality ; and so she 
take^ the first step as the rightful mother. Secondj 
it is dark. There is no need to guard against 
robber bees, for none are in flight. The sentinels 
have ceased to ask the pass-word, and all within the 
camp are friends ; and then, she must belong to the 
hive, for she did not pass the entrance at all, but is 
found near the roof — and thus the bees are cheated 
into kindness, where a knowledge of the truth would 
make them wild with ra^e. 
O 
The condition of the queen has, however, some- 
what to do with the bearing of the bees towards her. 
She must not come in “ a questionable shape.” If she 
be out of laying, she may disappoint the colony, and 
so be overthrown, even after she has been accepted; 
while want of personal cleanliness will make her safety 
doubtful. The Italian queens of former days were sent^ 
with, perhaps, 200 workers, in boxes of about thirty-six 
cubic inches capacity, each containing a small comb of 
store. These had frequently, at their arrival, an odour 
not of sanctity, since the attendant workers had become 
distended beyond endurance. This fact greatly in- 
creased the difficulty of introduction, for they who 
keep every cranny swept, and* themselves as clean as 
new pins, would not be likely to accept with much 
