SWARMING AND HIVING. 
109 
CHAPTER IX. 
NATURAL SWARMING, AND HIVING OF SWARMS. 
This swarming of bees is one of the most beautiful 
sights in the whole compass of rural economy. Although 
many who use movable-comb hives prefer the artificial 
multiplication of colonies, few would be willing entirely to 
dispense with the pleasing excitement of natural swarm- 
ing. 
“ Up mounts the chief, and to the cheated eye 
Ten thousand shuttles dart along the sky ; 
As swift through aatlier rise the rushing swarms, 
Gay dancing to the beam their sun-bright forms ; 
And each thin form, still ling’ring on the sight, 
Trails, as it shoots, a line of silver light. 
High pois’d on buoyant wing, the thoughtful queen. 
In gaze attentive, views the varied scene, 
And soon her far-fetch’d ken discerns below 
The light laburnum lift her polish’d brow, 
Wavo her green leafy ringlets o'er the glade, 
And seem to beckon to her friendly shade. 
Swift as the falcon’s sweep, the monarch bends 
Her flight abrupt ; the following host descends. 
Round the fine twig, like cluster’d grapes, they close 
In thickening wreaths, and court a short repose.” 
Evans. 
The multiplication of colonies by swarming, both guards 
the bee against the possibility of extinction, and makes its 
labors in the highest degree useful to man. The laws of 
reproduction in insects not living in regular colonies, 
secure an ample increase of their numbers. The same is 
true of those which live in colonies during the warm 
weather only, as hornets, wasps, and humble-bees. In the 
