APIS. 
339 
This condition will sometimes last a clay or two, and 
thence of course all is confusion both within and with¬ 
out the hive, for her subjects have suspended their la¬ 
bours and she has suspended her egg-laying, and roams 
wildly about within, striving, whenever she approaches 
a royal cell, or a fully developed young queen, to attack 
the latter, and destroy her by stinging her to death, or, 
to tear the former to pieces to get at the imago within, 
which indicates its apprehension by a shrill piping 
sound. But she is forcibly dragged back from this api- 
cidal purpose by the working bees which surround each, 
and who now intermit their usual deference to prevent 
this destruction, and bite her and drag her back. The 
future queen of the abdicated throne having, during 
this turmoil, returned from her wedding tour, and be¬ 
ing still protected from slaughterous aggression, the old 
queen indignantly issues forth. This exodus takes 
place usually on a brilliant and warm day, between 
twelve and three,—accordingly during the hottest hours. 
This is the first swarm of the year, and if the season 
be very genial it will take place in May. In this 
migration she is accompanied by all her most faithful 
lieges, which comprise, to the honour of beehood, by 
very much the largest majority of the inhabitants, to 
the number usuallv, in a well-stocked hive, of several 
thousands,—say from ten to twenty, depending on the 
population of the hive. 
Having thus issued forth in a body, they shortly alight 
upon and about the branch of some adjacent tree, clus¬ 
tering, in as close proximity as they can, to their royal 
leader. In a natural state, when duly organized to pro¬ 
ceed, they would thence start for the domicile that had 
previously been selected by the emissaries above noted ; 
z 2 
