Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/216

 “Now, when the Queen has her hive full of honey and enough white nymphs to be sure that the hive will always have a Queen, and lots of bee bread to feed the nymphs and all the other bees that are shut up in the cradles, and when everything in the hive is just right, a thing happens that nobody understands about. Right here is where the Queen takes her Ladies of Honour and her architects and her masons who make the combs, and her workers who bring in the pollen and the nectar, and she takes some males and she takes some nurses, and she goes right away and leaves all the work that all of them have done so carefully. The thing that nobody knows is who decides, or how it is decided, who shall stay in the hive and who shall go. But it looks like two thirds of them go with the old Queen.

“Before the old Queen starts to leave the hive with the swarm that goes with her, all of them except the Queen go to the honey vats and take honey to last them five or six days so they will not starve while they’re finding a new home, and so the wax that they can distil from the honey will be right along with them to lay the foundations for the cells to begin work in their new home.

“Then the Queen walks out of the hive, and the ones that are to go with her all come, too. She flies a little way and settles on an orange branch, or maybe on a fig, or a jacqueranda, and close around her come her Ladies of Honour and all her swarm that are taking care of her. They hide her away down among themselves so no bird can get her or hawk moth, or anything, and the scouts go