29 
but it is now known that no principal of wax 
resides in pollen : it is collected solely for the pur- 
pose of feeding the young brood, and the perfect 
bees never live upon it ; but the workers take it, 
grain by grain, in their teeth, and transmit it to the 
mouths of the larva. Honey, in the comb, may 
be kept in the drawers in which it is made, during 
the whole winter, allowing it to remain exactly as 
the bees formed it. To separate honey from the 
comb, let it be cut in small pieces, and suspended 
near the fire, in a canvas bag. The wax may be 
purified by putting the comb, tied up in a linen or 
woolen bag, into a vessel of water, over the fire ; 
as the heat increases, the wax liquifies, and esca- 
ping through the bag, rises to the surface ; it may 
be skimmed off, while the refuse is retained be- 
hind. It may be well to place some weight on, or 
in the bag, to prevent it from rising to the surface. 
SWARMING. 
There seems to^le no satisfactory reason given, 
by authors, for the swarming of bees. II is gene- 
rally supposed that swarming ensues in conse- 
quence ot the hive being overstocked with num- 
bers, and from a young queen seeking a new dwell- 
ing, where she may be placed in “ royal state,” at 
the head of a colony. It is seldom that bees 
swarm from a hive until it is filled, or nearly filled. 
Still, the want of room cannot, in all instances, 
be the sole cause of swarming ; and, instead of a 
young queen, it is always the old queen that leads 
out a swarm, and the same old queen that leads 
out a swarm this year, will lead out a swarm from 
her new habitation the next year. An old queen 
never leaves the hive until she has deposited eggs 
