SWARMING AND MATING FLIGHT 
55 
drone dies soon after, but the queen returns proudly 
to her hive to receive the homage of her subjects and 
to lay the first of the thousands of eggs she will lay 
during her two or three-year lifetime. 
Since the workers live only five or six weeks in the 
summer, many eggs must be laid so that the num¬ 
bers of those who die will be replaced. 
In the winter the colony does not exactly hiber¬ 
nate but clusters together over the combs, eating 
honey and keeping warm. Life is so much less 
strenuous than during the summer’s harvesting that 
the young bees hatched in the fall live through till 
spring when brood-rearing starts again. 
Apis Mellifica, “the honey-maker,” has been an 
object of interest to poets, philosophers, historians, 
and scientists for countless centuries—as far back 
as records take up. 
Many centuries ago, Pliny described the trans¬ 
portation of bees up the River Po: As soon as the 
spring food for bees has jailed in the valleys near 
our towns, the hives of bees are put into boats and 
carried up against the stream of the river in the 
night, in search of pasturage. The bees go out in 
the morning in quest of provisions and return regu¬ 
larly to their hives in the boats, with the stores they 
have collected . This method is continued until the 
