that accommodation has become insufficient, and the heat
so unendurable that every wing droops wet and flaccid with perspiration,
as grand an emigration as those of the early Northern tribes is ordered,
scouts are sent out to select the future place of abode, and in some
propitious moment of perfect sunshine, honey-pouches full and nothing to
delay, the great exodus takes place with a noise as if the whole hive
were attacked by vertigo; and Homer himself could find nothing to which
to compare his multitudinous Greeks thronging from their ships fitter
than these nations of close-swarming bees. That the young queen should
lead the departing swarm seems the natural occurrence, being desirous of
fulfilling her own destiny and of hastening from a hive hostile to all
but one mistress whom they already know and love. Huber, however, will
have it that it is the old queen, who, outraged and indignant at her
treatment when a rival is allowed to live, sounds the alarm and sallies
forth with her adherents. In support of this Mr. Duncan mentions having
deprived an old queen of one of her antennae, and noticing her thereafter
at the head of a swarm, although Huber previously makes it known that
any bee deprived of one of its antennae is rendered useless. And in
opposition to it may be given the circumstance quoted by Mr. Huish, in
which the German apiarian Scopoli asserts, that, having clipped the
wings of a queen, he found her still in his hive after an interval of
many months, during which two excellent swarms had been thrown, and
rather plumes himself on the triumphant fact, as if by any possibility
she could have gotten away. A hive will throw off from one to four
swarms in a season, but the last two are generally worthless, and should
be deprived of their queens and returned to the parent stock. We have an
old adage to this purpose,--

A swarm in May
Is worth a load of hay,
A swarm in June
Is worth a silver spoon,
But the swarm of July
Isn't worth a fly,"--

and any one may verify it who chooses to investigate the condition of
such swarms at the conclusion of the harvest, when it will be seen that
those which founded their colony at so late an hour have not collected
sufficient honey even for their winter provision, and must be fed in
order to be saved till spring.

They have dainty appetites, these little people. They will work away
with their forceps at a bit of sweetmeat, but they can absorb only