e we cannot well comprehend how, in
three or four days afterwards, it can be in a state to send out another
colony equally strong.

But remark, in the first place, that the queen leaves a prodigious
quantity of workers' brood, which soon transforms to bees; and in this
way the population sometimes becomes almost as great after swarming as
before it.

Thus the hive is perfectly capable of affording a second colony without
being too much weakened. The third and fourth swarm weaken it more
sensibly; but the inhabitants always remain in sufficient numbers to
preserve the course of their labours uninterrupted; and the losses are
soon repaired by the great fecundity of the queen, as she lays above an
hundred eggs a day.

If, in some cases, the agitation of swarming is so great, that all the
bees participate in it, and leave the hive, the desertion lasts but for
a moment. The hive throws only during the finest part of the day, and it
is then that the bees are ranging through the country. Those that are
out, therefore, cannot share in the agitation; when returned to the
hive, they quietly resume their labours; and their number is not small,
for, when the weather is fine, at least a third of the bees are employed
in the fields at once.

Even in the most embarrassing case, namely, where the whole bees desert
the hive, it does not follow, that all those endeavouring to depart
become members of the new colony. When this agitation or delirium seizes
them, the whole rush forward and accumulate towards the entrance of the
hive, and are heated in such a manner that they perspire copiously.
Those near the bottom, and supporting the weight of all the rest, seem
drenched in perspiration; their wings grow moist; they are incapable of
flight; and even when able to escape, they advance no farther than the
board of the hive, and soon return.

Those that have lately left their cells remain behind the swarm, still
feeble, they could not support themselves in flight. Here then are also
many recruits to people what we should have thought a deserted
habitation.

LETTER X.

_THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED._

To preserve greater regularity in continuing the history of swarms, I
think it proper to recapitulate in a few words the principal points of
the preceding letter, and to expatiate on each, concerning the result of
new experiments, respecting which I have still been silent.

In the first place. _If at the return of spring, we exa