406 
BEE. 
young brood will never leave the hive if it is suf- 
ficiently enlarged in its dimensions to contain them. 
For some evenings before they finally depart, a 
strange noise is heard in the hive, resembling a kind 
of ring, or the sound of a small trumpet. 
When the young colony have taken flight, they 
wander with a buzzing noise through the air in 
search of a commodious retreat ; and after flying 
about, seemingly in great confusion, they fix them- 
selves in a cluster upon the branch of a tree, or in 
the hollow trunk, and sometimes in holes or clefts 
leading to some hollow place. When the queen is 
settled in the new situation, wherever it may be, 
the rest of the swarm soon follow, and in about a 
quarter of an hour the whole body seem to be at 
ease. It sometimes happens that there are two 
or three queens to a swarm, and the colony is 
divided into parties ; but when this is the case the 
matter is soon settled, as they generally differ in 
strength, and the bees presently desert the weakest 
to put themselves under the protection of the most 
powerful sovereign. It is said that the deserted 
queen does not long survive this defeat ; she takes 
refuge under the new monarch, and is soon de- 
stroyed by her jealous rival. Till this cruel execu- 
tion is performed, the bees never go out to work ; 
and if there should be a queen bee belonging to the 
new colony left in the hive, she always undergoes 
the fate of the former. 
After the young bees have settled themselves to 
their satisfaction, they begin their labours by build- 
