ony is composed
of young bees which have been forced to emigrate by the older ones, have
certainly failed to use their eyes to much advantage, or they would have
seen, in hiving a new swarm, that it is composed of both young and old;
some, having wings ragged from hard work, while others are evidently
quite young. After the tumult of swarming is entirely over, not a bee
that did not participate in it, seeks afterwards to join the new colony,
and not one that did, seeks to return. What determines some to go, and
others to stay, we have no certain means of knowing.

How wonderfully abiding the impression made upon an insect, which in a
moment causes it to lose all its strong affection for the old home in
which it was bred, and which it has entered, perhaps hundreds of times;
so that when established in another hive, though only a few feet
distant, it never afterwards pays the slightest attention to its former
abode! Often, when the hive into which the new swarm is put, is not
removed from the place where the bees were hived, until some have gone
to the fields, on their return, they fly for hours, in ceaseless circles
about the spot where the missing hive stood. I have often known them to
continue the vain search for their companions until they have, at
length, dropped down from utter exhaustion, and perished in close
proximity to their old homes!

It has been already stated that the old queen, if the weather is
favorable, generally leaves about the time that the young queens are
sealed over, to be changed into nymphs. In about eight days more, one of
these queens hatches, and the question must now be decided whether any
more colonies are to be sent out that season, or not. If the hive is
well filled with bees, and the season in all respects promising, this
question is generally decided in the affirmative; although colonies
often refuse to swarm more than once when they are very strong, and when
we can assign no reason for such a course; and they sometimes swarm
repeatedly, to the utter ruin of both the old stock, and the
after-swarms.

If the bees decide to swarm again, the first hatched queen is allowed
to have her own way. She rushes immediately to the cells of her sisters,
and, (as was described in the Chapter on Physiology,) stings them to
death. From some observations that I have made, I am inclined to think
that the other bees aid her in this murderous transaction: they
certainly tear open the cradles of the slau