Gently swaying in the sunlight, lifeless and inert but for a few restless bees that hum about it, the sight of a settled swarm has an almost uncanny effect on most observers. A little before, the whole garden was filled with its deafening, joyous hubbub; now a strange silence has fallen, and it is impossible to dissociate from its present state the idea of an abject depression and disillusionment, as though the whole thing had been but a mad escapade, of which the bees were now heartily ashamed. If we may conceive the issue of a swarm to be a freak of ancestral memory, the sudden irresistible impulse to follow an old racial habit, long obsolete, it is not difficult to account for the obvious change of mind that has now come over the absconding host. Packed within the hive in a feverish, surging multitude, disabilities were not self-evident as they are now, tried in the light of day. “Violent delights have violent ends, And, in their triumph, die.” And now there is the morrow to be thought of: life to be rendered possible in all odds of weather; a home to be made; the queen-mother to be sheltered—she, the one remaining possession of the crowd, beggared now, but so rich a moment before. There is hard work ahead, enough to sober the giddiest among them. The madness has gone as quickly as it came, and now the honey-bee is to show herself a reasoning creature, if never before. It is believed by most bee-keepers that a swarm selects the site of its future dwelling some time before the expedition starts, in many cases several days earlier. An old trick among cottagers is to place out empty hives in their gardens, and these not uncommonly attract errant swarms. A few bees are seen cruising about, and subjecting the hives to a close scrutiny. These pioneer bees disappear, and after a variable time, from a few minutes to a few hours, or even days, a whole army of bees suddenly descends from the sky and takes possession of the new home. When the interval between the appearance of the scouts and the arrival of the main body, is only a short one, the reconnoitring bees have been manifestly sent out by the clustered swarm; but in the case of long periods elapsing, the scouts must have been sent in search of the new location before the swarm issued. Probably, although the bulk of the party is imbued with this reckless spirit alone, thinking and caring for nothing else but the escape and the frolic, many of the older and wiser bees undertake the matter in a temperate, businesslike way, as they would go about any other important hive-operation. In one sense, therefore, the old notion of there being “subordinate lieutenants, captains, and governours” in a hive may not be so very far from the truth. That these scouts are actually sent out to find a suitable site for the new colony, either before the swarm leaves or while it is clustered in the open, is a well-established fact, so that some of the bees at least must keep their