Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/146

142 as might be expected, more apt to do so, if the hive contains comb or honey, the smell of which will have its effect in enticing them. But we have had many instances of their fixing on empty hives quite new, and which had never been used. At the same time, we do not mean to say that the bees literally send or commission some of their number on the duty of selecting a retreat; but we think, that, impelled by instinct, numbers do go on this errand; that each succeeding day they are joined in their search by others of the community; that thus a great proportion of the population may have visited the spot selected; and that, therefore, when the emigration takes place, a large body of the bees naturally betakes itself to the place pitched on, and is followed by the general swarm with the queen. We would not go so far as to maintain, as some have done, that in all cases the bees have previously chosen their intended retreat, and that the shrub or bush on which they first alight, is only meant to serve as a rallying point previously to their final flight. Were this always the case, it is not likely they would submit so readily to be intercepted by the bee-master, and remain contentedly, as in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they do, in the hive in which he has placed them. The truth is, perhaps, that the writers on bees, like writers on many other subjects, especially of Natural History, are fond of classing the acts and proceedings of their favourites under certain fixed and uniform rules, from which they are supposed never to deviate. Whereas daily