CHAPTER XV.. Symptoms Which Precede Swarming.

SYMPTOMS WHICH PRECEDE SWARMING.

"See where with hurry'd step, th' impassion'd throng Pace o'er the hive, and seem with plaintive song T' invite their loitering queen; now range the floor, And hang in cluster'd columns from the door; Or now in restless rings around they fly, Nor spoil they sip, nor load the hollow'd thigh: E'en the dull drone his wonted ease gives o'er. Flaps the unwieldy wing, and longs to soar."

+Evans.+

Notwithstanding what I have said in the last chapter on the subject of clustering, it is too important a circumstance to be omitted in the following enumeration of the signs of swarming.

1. Clustering or hanging out, if taken singly, may be regarded as a fallacious symptom, but when conjoined with other indications, it may be considered as a sign of swarming, particularly if accompanied by the signs enumerated at the commencement of my motto.

2. The drones being visible in greater numbers than usual, and in great commotion, especially in the afternoon.

3. The inactivity of the working bees, who neither gather honey nor farina, though the morning be sunny and the weather altogether inviting. Reaumur regarded this as the most indubitable sign of preparation for swarming.

4. A singular humming noise, for two or three nights previous, which has been variously described and accounted for. It cannot always be distinguished, unless the ear be placed near the mouth of the hive; the sounds, which are sharp and clear, seem to proceed from a single bee. Some suppose the noise to be made by the young queen, and to resemble chip chip peep peep or the toot toot of a child's penny trumpet, but not so loud; Mr. Hunter compares it to the lower a in the treble of the piano-forte. It is readily distinguishable by those who have been accustomed to hear it. +Dr. Evans+ inquires, is it the sound emitted by perfect queens, on emerging from their cells, as described by M. Huber? The noise is sometimes in a shrill, at other times in a deeper key; this difference in the intensity of the tones may arise from the distance whence the sound proceeds, or may be intended to intimate to the bees the respective ripeness of their queens. +Butler+ and +Woolridge+ ascribe it to a parley between the old and young queens, the latter at the bottom of the hive requesting leave to emigrate, and the former answering in her bass note from the top. +Wildman+ supposes it to arise from a contest betwixt the queens, about sallying forth; and endeavours to account for its less frequency before first swarms, from the young chiefs being then in their embryo state. This however is mere hypothesis, and not at all consonant with later discoveries, particularly those of Huber and Dunbar. Vide pages 18 and 22.

5. Unusual silence in the hive, during which the separatists are supposed to be taking in a cargo of honey before their flight, as a provision against bad weather. Mr. Hunter opened the crops of some bees that remained in the parent hive and the crops of some emigrating bees, when he found the latter quite full, whilst the former contained but a small quantity.

The above symptoms oftener precede second or third than first swarms, which latter sometimes issue forth without any previous notice. +Keys+ speaks so emphatically upon this subject that I shall quote his words. "Although there are no signs that precede first swarms, those, before-mentioned, convey to the apiator one certain meaning, and when heard he may be assured that the first or prime swarm has escaped, if that will comfort him."

The moment before their departure exhibits a very lively agitation, which first affects the queen, and is then communicated to the workers, exciting such a tumult among them, that they abandon their labours, and rush in disorder to the outlets.

If a swarm quit the first place on which it clusters, it hovers in the air for some time, as if undetermined, and then flies off with great velocity.

We hear now and then of a swarm of bees being lost, of its having eluded the vigilance of the proprietor; I think that its loss is generally attributable to negligence. As a different opinion is prevalent, I shall state a few of the facts upon which that difference is founded.

+Homer+ and +Virgil+ speak of bees in their wild state as fixing their habitations in the rocks and in hollow trees.

"As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees, Clustering in heaps on heaps, the driving bees."

+Pope's Homer.+

"And oft, ('tis said,) they delve beneath the earth, And nurse in gloomy caves their hidden birth, Amid the crumbling stone's dark concave dwell, Or hang in hollow trees their airy cell."

+Sotheby's Georgics.+

Many instances are also recorded of domesticated bees seeking an asylum in some hollow part of an old building or tree. +Dr. Warder+, +Mr. Butler+, +Mr. Knight+, +Dr. Evans+, +M. Duchet+, and other writers think that the bees about to swarm regularly send out scouts, to explore an eligible situation for their future residence; though Dr. Evans admits that this disposition to resume wild habits, like many of the instinctive faculties of the animal creation, has its intensity weakened by domestication. Dr. Warder asserts that the bees always send out providers, to select a suitable residence for them, several days before swarming, and considers that their clustering upon a bough, &c. soon after they issue forth, proceeds from their desire to be all congregated together prior to the last flight: this is likewise the opinion of Mr. Knight. If the place selected be a deserted hive, it is first cleared by the bees of all heterogeneous matters, the old combs alone being allowed to remain. An observance of this conduct probably led +Columella+ to recommend the placing of empty hives, during the swarming season, in appropriate situations near an apiary. +Keys+ gives a similar recommendation. +Reaumur+ on the other hand ridicules the idea of "spies and quartermasters," as ingenious fable. What I have stated in Chapter XVII. p. 148. confirms Reaumur's opinion: he is also supported in it by +Buffon+, +Bonnet+, and +Huber+: the former says, that the swarming bees form a cloud round their queen, and set off without seeming to know the place of their destination;--"the world before them, where to choose their place of rest." I will however detail a few cases that support the theory of "spies and quartermasters." In the Philosophical Transactions for 1807, +Mr. Knight+, writing to Sir Joseph Banks, relates several instances of the kind. On one occasion he observed from twenty to thirty bees paying daily visits to some decayed trees, about a mile distant from his garden; the bees appeared to be busily employed in examining the hollow parts, and particularly the dead knots around them, as if apprehensive of the knots admitting moisture. In about fourteen days, these seeming surveyors were followed by a large swarm from his apiary, which was watched the whole way, till it alighted in one of these cavities. It was observed to journey nearly in a direct line from the apiary to the tree. On several similar occasions the bees selected that cavity which Mr. Knight thought best adapted to their use. He has also noticed that, a stock being nearly ready to swarm, one of these hollow trees was daily occupied by a small number of bees; but the swarm from that stock, being lodged in another hive, the tree was wholly deserted. This preference of a hive, when offered them, to a place chosen by themselves, Mr. Knight ascribes to a habit acquired by domestication, which generating a dependence upon man for providing them a dwelling, descends hereditarily from the parents to their offspring. Another instance is related by +Dr. Evans+: he suffered a hive, whose tenants had died in the winter, to remain upon the stand till spring: he then observed several bees paying it daily visits, and busily employed within, but leaving it at the close of evening. These soon appeared, like Dr. Warder's providers, to be the harbingers of a swarm; for, early in June, an immense body of these insects were seen rapidly approaching, and then surrounding the hive: they took possession as quickly as its narrow entrance and crowded combs would permit. The same result was noticed after the mild winter of 1806-7, which untenanted one of his hives by famine: he was present when the swarm issued (from another hive in his garden) to take possession of the empty one, which, on his endeavouring to raise it, to give facility to their entrance, he found already cemented to the floor. The Doctor also relates a case in which a swarm of bees "made its way either over the tops of some very high houses, or through several winding streets, to an old house in the centre of Shrewsbury, and passing through an aperture in the wood-work to a room on the first floor, were there hived by the family." +Mr. Butler+ in his Feminine Monarchie mentions the case of a poor woman whose hive being depopulated by famine was allowed to remain out of doors till the ensuing summer, when a swarm took possession of it, from which she afterwards stored her garden. Other instances of a similar kind have been related; but in most of them it is not easy to ascertain how far the proprietors of the hives, from which the swarms went forth, had been improvident. The cases related by Mr. Knight are the most remarkable; but with respect to these, further information would be desirable. Was there any inducement beyond a snug housing in the cavities of the trees, to tempt the bees to wander so far from their native spot? such as favourite pasturage, or neighbouring trees that were wont to supply honey-dew? or were there in either of the hollow trees, thus occupied, any old combs which had been left there by another family? Lastly, were the emigrating bees exposed to any annoyance in their old habitation, either from neighbours of their own species or the attacks of other animals? or were they deprived of any sheltering protection to which they had been accustomed, by the removal of buildings, the cutting down of trees or otherwise? +Bonner+, who agrees in opinion with Mr. Knight, that bees often go in quest of a suitable habitation, before they swarm, has observed that he knew for certain that a swarm would not fly a mile to an empty hive, "whereas they will fly," says he, "four miles to take possession of an old one with combs in it."