fore the hive induces
them precipitately to return. I am induced to think they are disquieted
by the sudden diminution of light. For if the sky is uniformly obscured,
and there is no alteration in clearness or in the clouds dispelling,
they proceed to the fields for their ordinary collections, and the first
drops of a soft rain does not make them return with much precipitation.

I am persuaded that the necessity of a fine day for swarming is one
reason that has induced nature to admit of bees protracting the
captivity of their young queens in the royal cells. I will not deny that
they sometimes seem to use this right in an arbitrary manner. However
the confinement of the queens is always longer when bad weather lasts
several days together. Here the final object cannot be mistaken. If the
young females were at liberty to leave their cradles during these bad
days, there would be a plurality of queens in the hive, consequently
combats; and victims would fall. Bad weather might continue so long,
that all the queens might at once have undergone their last
metamorphosis, or attained their liberty. One victorious over the whole
would enjoy the throne, and the hive, which should naturally produce
several swarms, could give only one. Thus the multiplication of the
species would have been left to the chance of rain, or fine weather,
instead of which it is rendered independent of either, by the wise
dispositions of nature. By allowing only a single female to escape at
once, the formation of swarms is secured. This explanation appears so
simple, that it is superfluous to insist farther on it.

But I should mention another important circumstance resulting from the
captivity of queens; which is, that they are in a condition to fly, when
the bees have given them liberty, and by this means are capable of
profiting by the first moment of sunshine to depart at the head of a
colony.

You well know, Sir, that all drones and workers are not in a condition
to fly for a day or two after leaving their cells. Then they are of a
whitish colour, weak, and their organs infirm. At least, twenty-four or
thirty hours must elapse before the acquisition of perfect strength, and
the development of all their faculties. It would be the same with the
females was not their confinement protracted after the period of
transformation; but we see them appear, strong, full grown, brown, and
in a better condition for flying than at any other period. I have
else