grenadier, who, being comfortably asleep while his comrades were pitching their tents, answered to his general, M. de Turenne, when questioned on the subject, '_that he knew very well that the army would not remain long in the camp they were pitching_.' "All our bees, or nearly all, seemed to have foreseen the move that their queen was about to make, as that old soldier had foreseen the general's order to his army."[88] [88] "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Insectes," tome v., p. 611. In a hive which is going to "cast," as it is called in technical phraseology, there is often heard, in the evening, and even during the night, a peculiar humming. All seems to be in agitation. Sometimes, to hear the noise, it will be necessary to bring your ear close to the hive; you then will hear nothing but clear and sharp sounds, which seem to be produced by the flapping of the wings of one single bee. "Those who know better than I do the language of bees," says Réaumur, "have told marvels of these sounds. They pretend that it is the new queen that makes this noise; that she is, perhaps, haranguing the troops she wishes to go with her; or that, with a kind of trumpet, she animates them to undertake the great adventure. Charles Butler, the author of 'Female Monarchy,' attributes to this noise quite another signification. He says that it seems as if the bee which aspires to become queen supplicates the queen-mother, by lamentations and groans, to grant it permission to lead a colony out from the hive; that the queen does not yield sometimes to these touching prayers for two days; that when she does acquiesce, she answers the suppliant in a fuller and stronger voice; and that when you have heard the mother-bee grant this permission, you may hope next day to have a swarm.... Butler has determined all the modulations of the chant of the suppliant bee, the different keys to which they are set, as also those of the chants of the queen-mother. He pretends that it is not allowed to those who wish to raise themselves to a superior rank to imitate the chants of the sovereign; woe betide the young female if she should dare to do so! it would only be in a spirit of revolt, and she would be immediately punished by the loss of her head. The old-established queen does more than that: at the same moment she condemns to death those bees which had been seduced."[89] The true cause of this unusual noise is the agitation of the wings of a great number of the bees in the middle of the hive. [89] _Ibid_, tome v., pp. 616, 617.