118 
THE HI VS AND HONEY-BEE. 
Whether bees send out scouts before or after swarming, 
may admit of more question. When a colony flies to its 
new home -without alighting, the scouts must have been 
dispatched before swarming. If this were the usual 
course, we should expect every colony to take the same 
speedy departure ; or if they should cluster for the con- 
venience of the queen, or any bees over-fatigued by the 
excitement of swarming, we should look for only a tran- 
sient tarrying. Instead of this, they often remain until 
the next day, and instances are not unfrequent of a much 
more protracted delay. The stopping of bees in their 
flight to cluster again, is not inconsistent with these views ; 
for if the weather is hot when they first cluster, and the 
sun shines directly upon them, they will often leave before 
they have found a suitable habitation. Sometimes the 
queen of an emigrating swarm, being heavy with eggs, 
and unaccustomed to fly, is compelled to alight, before 
she can reach their intended home. Queens, under such 
circumstances, are occasionally unwilling to take wing 
again, and the poor bees sometimes attempt to lay the foun- 
dations of their colony on fence-rails, hay-stacks, or other 
unsuitable places. 
Mr. Wagner says, that he once knew a swarm of bees 
to lodge under the lowermost limb of an isolated oak- 
tree, in a corn-field. It was not discovered until the corn 
was harvested, in September. Those who found it, mis- 
took it for a recent swarm, and in brushing it down to 
hive it, broke off three pieces of comb, each about eight 
inches square. Mr. Henry M. Zollickoffer, of Philadelphia, 
informed me that he knew a swarm to settle on a willow- 
tree in that city, in a lot owned by the Pennsylvania Hos- 
pital ; it remained there for some time, and the boys pelted 
it with stones, to get possession of its comb and honey. 
The necessity for scouts or explorers seems to be unqnea. 
