there are none: secondly, when the bees are so 
numerous, that part crowd about the outside of 
the hive, or lodge on the board in clusters of 
thousands: and thirdly, which is the least equi- 
vocal sign of the day of swarming, when fewer 
bees than usual go abroad for collection, and re- 
turn without honey or wax. Most observers also 
affirm, that in the evening before swarming an 
uncommon humming or buzzing is heard in the 
hive, and a distinct sound from the queen, called 
tolling or calling. Myr. Hunter compares it toa 
note of a pianoforte ; and other authors to differ- 
ent tones. 
The extraordinary instinct and precautions so 
conspicuous in bees, are apparently affected dur- 
ing the period of swarming. We cannot admit, 
with those observers, who seem more actuated by 
the love of the marvellous than an exposure of 
truth, that they are endowed with that prescience 
which induces them, before their departure, to 
prepare a place for their reception. On issuing 
from the hive, bees, so nearly as we can deter- 
mine, have no object in view; and they often 
resort to situations the most unlikely, and evi- 
dently unsuitable for their convenience or pre- 
servation. After rising in the air, it is commonly 
some tree that arrests their progress, and the 
queen frequently alights at the unsheltered ex- 
tremity of a branch, where the bees that may 
have formed into various clusters in the vicinity, 
come to surround her. But we have known them 
repeatedly swarm on the grass, near the hive 
they had forsaken, notwithstanding trees were at 
no great distance. Bees swarm only during the 
best weather, and in the finest part of the day. 
Sometimes all the precursors of swarming, dis- 
order and agitation, have been seen; but a cloud 
passed before the sun, and tranquillity was re- 
stored. Ifa hive swarms oftener than once, the 
new swarms consist of those bees that have been 
abroad when the first event took place, added to 
young ones come from the eggs, laid by the queen 
before her departure. Hach is led out by a young 
queen, as there are usually several royal cells in a 
hive: but the bees can prevent the whole queens 
nearly of an equal age from leaving their cells, 
though come to maturity: and when they do lib- 
erate them, it 1s according to their age, which they 
have some secret means of ascertaining ; for the 
oldest are invariably liberated first. The young 
swarm, whether removed from the place where it 
settles or not, begins to work; cells are con- 
structed of wax from the honey the bees have 
carried along with them; and nature has so ar- 
ranged it, that the first eggs laid by the queen 
produce the operative part of the community. 
Different kinds of hives.—All the circumstances 
above related having taken place, the new swarm is 
lodged in a hive, there to commence the collection 
of honey, the fabrication of wax, and the perpetua- 
tion of the species. Much has been said of the fittest 
size and figure of a hive, and of the substance of 
which it should consist: wood, straw, and oziers, 
this, 
long, and hexagonal hives have had their particular 
partisans. These things, we apprehend, do not merit 
the importance bestowed upon them; and our reason 
for saying so is, from having seen the most ample 
products of honey, under conditions almost diametri- 
cally opposite. - At one time we have seen large 
straw hives, of the ordinary fashion in this country, 
full to the brim of rich honey comb; at other times 
we have seen them almost empty, without any sen- 
sible cause, and where circumstances seemed to fa- 
vour the reverse. We are thence induced to conclude, 
that less depends on the shape and capacity of the 
hive, than on the kind and quantity of the swarm in- 
troduced into it, and on the season in which their 
collections are made. Examples have come under 
our notice, where a-swarm, lodging in the roof of a 
house, has produced a great quantity of honey in 
combs only four or five inches broad: another swarm 
also in the roof of a house, we have known to fill 
coinbs above eighteen inches in breadth. Exposure 
to the north or south has not affected the bees: their 
provision has been equally abundant. And here we 
may remark, that in all instances that have fallen 
within the sphere of our observation, the products of 
swarms, lodged in the roofs of houses, have invariably 
been abundant. We do not pretend to account for 
Perhaps it may partly result from their labours 
being performed without any disturbance or interrup- 
tion; partly from the greater heat preserved in a roof 
during summer. Heat is the soul of insects: their 
action and exertion are directly in proportion to the 
temperature of the atmosphere; and cold is the ban 
of their existence. It is not unlikely, also, that the 
same cause promoting the hatching of the brood, 
contributes to render the colony more numerous: 
and if their swarming is at all dependent on want of 
room, large portions of them have not an equal in- 
ducement to seek another dwelling. Pallas tells us, 
that the Russian peasants, in remote parts of the em- 
pire, hollow out a part of the trunks of trees, 25 or 
30 feet from the surface of the earth, for the purpose. 
of hives; and cover the opening with planks, having 
small apertures for the bees. At Cazan, Mr. Bell 
saw hives of a similar form, which the inhabitants 
bound to the trees at the side of a wood, in order to 
secure them from the bears. As abundant collec- 
tions of honey are often made in the common straw 
hives, we cannot affirm that they are unsuitable for 
the purpose; but they are attended with the disadvan- 
tage of preventing the owner from an early appropri- 
ation of the labours of the bees. One convenience, 
indeed, lies in the facility of construction, which 
always merits due appreciation in every branch of 
rural economy ; and, also, that the cost is inconsider- 
able. ‘lhough neither the size nor figure of the hive 
be important, all modern cultivators seem agreed 
that it should be susceptible of additions. In the 
ordinary straw hive, the addition is made by raising 
it on a circular ring or hoop, either of wood or of 
the same materials; a clumsy and awkward expedient, 
which commonly leads the bees to waste much of 
their labour in filling up crevices. Notwithstanding 
this, it is adopted in Brittany with some little differ- 
ence, and there called the Scotch hive. ‘The hive 
itself consists of two pieces, each twelve inches wide, 
and eleven high, made of rolls of straw. The under 
one is divided from the other; but a communication- 
hole, fifteen or eighteen lines in diameter, is left for 
the bees. As they work downwards, the under part, 
which is nothing but one of our common eeks, or 
broad hoops, is next filled.—Pyramidal hives have 
been made several feet in height, and divided into 
different stages or compartments; which the bees, 
after being lodged in the highest, would successively 
fill on removal of the floors or stages. —Boxes of con- 
venient size and form, placed above each other, have 
have all been recommended; and round, square, ob- | likewise been recommended, and which we should 
