The average number of a hive, or swarm, is from fifteen to twenty
thousand bees. Nineteen thousand four hundred and ninety-nine are neuters
or working bees, five hundred are drones, and the remaining _one_ is the
queen or mother! Every living thing, from man down to an ephemeral insect,
pursues the bee to its destruction for the sake of the honey that is
deposited in its cell, or secreted in its honey-bag. To obtain that which
the bee is carrying to its hive, numerous birds and insects are on the
watch, and an incredible number of bees fall victims, in consequence, to
their enemies. Independently of this, there are the changes in the
weather, such as high winds, sudden showers, hot sunshine; and then there
is the liability to fall into rivers, besides a hundred other dangers to
which bees are exposed.

When a queen bee ceases to animate the hive, the bees are conscious of
her loss; after searching for her through the hive, for a day or more,
they examine the royal cells, which are of a peculiar construction and
reversed in position, hanging vertically, with the mouth underneath. If
no eggs or larvae are to be found in these cells, they then _enlarge_
several of those cells, which are appropriated to the eggs of neuters,
and in which _queen eggs have been deposited_. They soon attach a royal
cell to the enlarged surface, and the queen bee, enabled now to grow,
protrudes itself by degrees into the royal cell, and comes out perfectly
formed, to the great pleasure of the bees.

The bee seeks only its own gratification in procuring honey and in
regulating its household, and as, according to the old proverb, what is
one man's meat is another's poison, it sometimes carries honey to its
cell, which is prejudicial to us. Dr. Barton in the fifth volume, of the
"American Philosophical Transactions," speaks of several plants that