The swarming of bees has been justly regarded as one of the most
beautiful sights in the whole compass of rural economy. Although, for
reasons which will hereafter be assigned, I prefer to rely chiefly on
artificial means for the multiplication of colonies, I should be very
unwilling to pass a season without participating, to some extent, in the
pleasing excitement of natural swarming.

"Up mounts the chief, and to the cheated eye
Ten thousand shuttles dart along the sky;
As swift through aether rise the rushing swarms,
Gay dancing to the beam their sun-bright forms;
And each thin form, still ling'ring on the sight,
Trails, as it shoots, a line of silver light.
High pois'd on buoyant wing, the thoughtful queen,
In gaze attentive, views the varied scene,
And soon her far-fetch'd ken discerns below
The light laburnum lift her polish'd brow,
Wave her green leafy ringlets o'er the glade,
And seem to beckon to her friendly shade.
Swift as the falcon's sweep, the monarch bends
Her flight abrupt; the following host descends.
Round the fine twig, like cluster'd grapes, they close
In thickening wreaths, and court a short repose."
_Evans._

The swarming of bees, by making provision for the constant
multiplication of colonies, was undoubtedly intended both to guard the
insect against the possibility of extinction, and to make its labors in
the highest degree useful to man. The laws of reproduction in those
insects which do not live in regular colonies, are such as to secure an
ample increase of numbers. The same is true in the case of hornets,
wasps and humble-bees which live in colonies only during the warm
weather. In the Fall of the year, all the males perish, while the
impregnated females retreat into winter quarters and remain dormant,
until the warm weather restores them to activity, and each one becomes
the mother of a new family.

The honey bee differs from all these insects, in being compelled, by the
laws of its physical organization, to live in communities, during the
entire year. The balmy breezes of Spring will quickly thaw out the
frozen veins of a torpid Wasp; but the bee is incapable of enduring even
a moderate degree of cold: a temperature as low as 50 deg. speedily chills
it, and it would be quite as easy to recall to life the stiffened
corpses in the charnel house of the Convent of the Great St. Be