As there is by immemorial honey-bee tradition but one queen in a community at one time, when new queens issue from the great cells, something has to happen. This may be one of three things: either the old and new queens battle to death, and it is believed that in such battles only does a queen bee ever use her sting, or the workers interfere and kill either the old or new queen by "balling" her (gathering in a tight suffocating mass about her), or either the old (usually old) or new queen leaves the hive with a swarm, and a new community is founded. In Fuzzy's community this last thing happened when the new queen came out. Mary and I were on hand very early the morning of the third day after the piping and trumpeting had begun. As we jerked the black cloth jacket off the hive to see how things were, we were astonished at the new excitement that was apparent in the hive; the bees seemed to be in a perfect frenzy and had suspended all other operations except racing about in apparent utter dementia. We could find neither the old queen nor the new queen in the seething mass, nor could we even see whether the queen cell was open or still sealed up. Another curious thing was that the taking off of the black cloth jacket seemed to affect the bees very strongly. They had suddenly become very sensitive to light, and while, when the jacket was on, they all seemed to be making towards the bottom and especially towards the exit corner, which was the lower corner next to the window, as soon as we lifted off the jacket they seemed all to rush up to the top where the light was strongest. So nearly simultaneous and uniform were the turning and rushing up that the whole mass of bees seemed to flow like some thick mottled liquid. It was evident that all this was the excitement and frenzy of swarming. And it was also evident that the bees, in their great excitement, were finding their way to the outlet by the light that came in through it. And when we removed the cloth jacket we confused them because the light now came into the hive from both sides and was especially strong at the top, which was nearest the greatest expanse of the outer window. So we finally let the jacket stay on, and after a considerable time of violent exertion, the bees began to issue pell-mell from the door of the house. The first comers waited for the others, and there was pretty soon formed a great mass of excited bees around the doorway, and clustered on the stone window-sill just outside. Then suddenly the whole mass took wing and flew away together. And pretty soon all was quiet in the hive.