Unless the queen has been caged, she should now be carefully looked for amongst the living moving mass on the sheet. It will be very satisfactory if we can succeed in spotting her, and can see her enter the hive safely amongst her subjects, for should she by any chance be missing, the swarm will be useless. She is considerably longer, though very little stouter, than an ordinary worker-bee, her tail being particularly long and tapering; her wings also are shorter than those of the workers, and there is a reddish appearance about her legs. We must not mistake a drone for the queen. There is only one queen in the swarm, but there may be several thousands of drones. The drone-bee may be known by his broad body, long wings and large eyes, which almost meet on the top of his head. The drone is stingless. The queen, on the contrary, possesses a sting, but she cannot pierce the skin with it, so we may handle her, when necessary, without fear. [Illustration: DRONE.] [Illustration: QUEEN.] [Illustration: WORKER.] If the queen is in a cage it will be necessary to liberate her and to let her run into the hive with the workers when the latter have almost all entered the hive. Next morning the front of the stock-box may be lowered, and we may take a peep into the hive by lifting up a corner of the quilts. All frames not filled with bees may be removed and placed behind the dummy, to be given again to the bees when they require more room, which they will do in a few days. If the weather keeps fine and warm we shall now see a number of workers flying around the entrance of the hive, and carefully noting the position of their new home. Then off they will go to the fields in search of food in the shape of honey and pollen, to return again before long with their bodies distended with the sweet juice, and their “thighs” laden with the yellow paste. Meanwhile their comrades at home have not been idle. Clustering inside the hive, they have been busy secreting wax, and have already drawn out some of the foundation into a comb of cells to hold the supplies brought in by the field-workers. And so the work of construction and storage goes on day after day, harmoniously and rapidly. There are no hitches or quarrelling amongst the twenty thousand or so little workers which constitute the swarm. Each one knows and does her share of the work, with results that are astonishing, as we shall see if we examine the hive at the end of even one short week.