It is interesting to note that the amount of nectar and pollen gathered will, to a certain extent, regulate the number of eggs that the queen will lay. If food is scarce she will not lay many, for if she did a great number would have no food and all would die of starvation. If, on the other hand, honey and pollen are abundant, hundreds or even thousands of eggs will be laid in a single day. The number is increased, too, as spring merges into summer, and for a fortnight or three weeks in May or June, the hive is at its busiest. During this period the fields are white with clover, and the flowers are at their best. This time is known as the honey flow, and if the hive be a prosperous one, the honey does literally flow into the combs. CHAPTER XXXII THE SWARM It is not known exactly why bees swarm, and it has been said that it is because the hive becomes overpopulated. When the hive becomes crowded early in the summer, the bees build queen cells, and in them royal princesses are reared, as we have already seen. When the time approaches for them to leave the cells, the old queen begins to get very excited, for she seems to know that a rival is about to be born. She would like to rush to the cells and put the young princesses to death, and indeed she would do this, were not the cells guarded by the other bees, who anticipate trouble with the old queen. So, though she may make the attempt, after being repulsed time after time she will give up, and adopt another procedure. She seems to realise that her rule in the hive is at an end, and so she determines to leave it on the first fine day, with as many of the other bees as will accompany her, and to fly to pastures new. All is then commotion with the bees that will go with her, and they seem to eagerly await the signal to be off. No one knows how it is decided which bees shall go, or which shall remain, for old or young, builders or foragers, may go or stay. All who are going, however, take in supplies of honey, and when the appointed time has arrived the swarm issues from the door of the hive in a thick black stream. The old queen will be among them, and they generally fly to some tree close at hand. A suitable spot is chosen, on one of the branches perhaps, and the leading bees settle there. These are quickly joined by the others, so that in a few seconds the cluster is as large as an orange. It grows larger and larger, until after a few minutes from the time the bees left the hive in a mad throng, they will all be quietly hanging in a pear-shaped mass like those in Plate XXVI. [Illustration: PLATE XXVI From a photograph by] [W. Dixon A Swarm]