Now if these statements can be relied on, and thus far I have nearly always found Huber's statements, where-ever I had an opportunity to test them, to be most wonderfully reliable, then it may be that when bees refuse to cluster on the brood comb and to proceed at once to rear a new queen, it is because they find that some of the conditions necessary for success are wanting. Either there may not be a sufficient number of wax-workers, to enlarge the cells, or a sufficient number of nurses to take charge of the larvæ; or it may be that the cells contain only young wax-workers which cannot be developed into queens, or only young nurses, which may be in the same predicament. If any of my readers imagine that the work of carefully experimenting, in order to establish facts upon the solid basis of complete demonstration, is an easy work, let them attempt now to prove or disprove the truth of any or all of my conjectures upon this single topic. They will probably find the task more difficult than to blot over whole quires and reams of paper with careless assertions. All operations of any kind which interfere in the very least, with the natural mode of forming colonies, are best performed in the swarming season: or at least, at a time when the bees are breeding freely, and are able to bring in large stores of honey from the fields. At other times, they are very precarious, and unless under the management of persons who have great experience, they will in most cases, end in nothing but vexatious losses and disappointments. It is quite amusing to see how bees act, when they find, on their return from foraging abroad, that their hive has been moved, and another put in its place. If the new hive is precisely similar to their own, in size and outward appearance, they enter it as though all was right; but in a few moments, they rush out in violent agitation, imagining that they have made a prodigious mistake and have entered the wrong place. They now take wing again in order to correct their blunder, but find to their increasing surprise, that they had previously directed their flight to the familiar spot; again they enter, and again they tumble out, in bewildered crowds, until, at length, if they can find the means of raising a new queen, or one is already there, they seem to make up their minds that if this is not home, it not only looks like it, but stands just where their home ought to be, and is at all events the only home they are likely to get. No doubt they often feel that a very hard bargain has been imposed upon them, but they seem generally determined to make the best of it.