ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 
203 
quccn-cage, with a suite of well-fed workers, arrived in 
safety, at the Apiary of a friend, on the next day. 
Great caution is not only requisite in giving a hive a 
strange queen, but in all attempts to mix bees belonging 
to different colonies. Bees having a fertile queen will 
almost always quarrel with those having an unimpregnated 
one; and this is one reason why a furious contest, in 
which thousands perish, often ensues when new swarms 
attempt to mingle. 
Members of different colonies appear to recognize their 
hive-companions by the sense of smell, and if there should 
be a thousand stocks in the Apiary, any one will readily 
detect a strange bee ; just as each mother in a large flock 
of sheep is able, by the same sense, in the darkest night, 
to distinguish her own lamb from all the others. It would 
seem, therefore, that colonies might always be safely 
mingled, by sprinkling them with sugar-water, scented 
with peppermint or any other strong odor, which would 
make them all smell alike. 
A few seasons ago, however, I discovered that bees 
often recognize strangers by their actions , even when they 
have the same scent; for a frightened bee curls himself 
up with a cowed look, which unmistakably proclaims that 
lie is conscious of being an intruder. If, therefore, the 
bees of one colony arc left on their oxen stand, and the 
others arc suddenly introduced, the latter, even when 
both colonics have the same smell, are often so frightened 
that they are discovered to be strangers, and are instantly 
killed. If, however, both colonies arc removed to a neio 
stand, and shaken out together on a sheet, they will 
peaceably mingle, when scented alike.* 
* I find substantially the same thing recommended, iu 1778, by Thomas Wild- 
man (page 280 of the 3rd edition of his valuable work on Bees), who says, that 
bees will “ unite while in fear and distress, without fighting, as they would be apt 
to do, if strange bees wore addod to a hive in possession of its honey.” 
