The worker bee possesses an instinct but little inferior to reason in the human family. A few examples will show their wonderful instinct: Twenty hives of bees, placed in a row, but a few inches distant one from the other, all of like size, shape and color; the bees to our perception _exactly_ alike, no difference in size, shape, color or action;--yet every bee of this vast number (which at some seasons of the year would amount to more than six hundred thousand bees) in these twenty hives knows its own hive, and if let alone will not enter any other, except it be for the purpose of securing the honey therein for its own use, or in other words to plunder and rob its neighbor. There is no intercourse between swarms--each is a separate colony governed by a queen. If through mistake the subjects of one enter the domain of another, a war of extermination is commenced at once. To test this point, I changed two hives so that they were reversed, the one occupying the place of the other. This was done while the bees were out collecting honey in a warm day. The first bees that entered the hive were instantly killed, and this was kept up until the hives were set in their proper places. The ground in front of the hives was covered with hundreds of dead bees. A bee is killed almost _instantly_ by the sting of another. The young bee on its first excursion from the hive does not leave its home without precaution. With a view to a safe return, it turns its head towards its home, rises slowly on the wing, at first describing a circle of only a few inches in diameter, as it recedes slowly backward, seeming to so mark every object surrounding the hive as to enable it to return and enter, without the slightest danger of entering any other hive. Bees in Spring, in their first flight, mark their location in this manner. After the location has been thus marked, the bees leave the hive in a direct line, and return by their way-marks, with perfect accuracy and regularity. [Illustration: DRONE BEE.]