THE APIARY. 
431 
almost certainly to robbing* and disaster. But in 
addition, with such an arrangement as I have been 
describing, any poor queen seeking maternal honours, 
in leaving her hive has a task put before her almost as 
difficult as learning to distinguish a special note on 
the keyboard of a piano ; and what wonder if she, 
the hope and promise of her colony, bewildered by 
our mistaken notions of trimness, fail, and, entering at 
her return the wrong door, fall by an alien dart, and so 
leave her proper home to extinction ? We must not 
sacrifice the picturesque to the symmetrical, unless we 
can place our stocks some distance from each other. 
Long lines of similar hives must be avoided, unless 
characteristic landmarks, such as shrubs and trees, rise 
amongst them. Let variety in colour, if not in form, 
come to our aid, and then we shall not need the resource 
of fixing near the flight-hole of a stock containing a 
queen approaching the period of mating, some con- 
spicuous object, such as a leafy bough, to guide her 
at her return. 
Errors made by bees in finding their stands is the 
main cause, probably, of a difficulty which has sorely 
puzzled many. During examination, especially in 
windy and uncomfortable weather, an encasement of 
the queen in her own hive is commenced ; or, when 
the hive is opened, she is found already balled, as 
though she had been amongst strangers. The occur- 
rence is comparatively rare, but is observed, as would 
* The close placing of hives does not lead to difficulties, if the bees can 
distinguish easily between them ; and in robbing, it is usually noticed that 
the war rages, not between close neighbours, but between stocks lying 
some distance apart. 
