THE. SWARMING BEE.
Bee-keeping seems to be on the increase in Britain ; and the science of it grows in curious precision. Bees are now being scientifically bred for the inherited quality of reluctance to swarm. In a manual just published (,4 Manual of Bee- keeping, by E. B. Wedmore. Arnold, I5s.) it is thought worth while to warn such breeders that the non-swarming bees are apt to be too reluctant to breed queens ! You cannot have it both ways ! Poultry-keepers have discovered —and it is a very valuable discovery—that prolific egg-laying is inherited through the cock, not the hen. Bee-keepers are on the way to discover what characteristics are passed on by the drone, what by his queen. The manual in question is of singular completeness. There is no single point on which the practical bee-keeper will not find direct businesslike advice. It is a monument of minute knowledge. In the one detail only—the inwardness of the instinct to swarm—does the author allow himself a little theorizing ; and the exception to his rule is very welcome. He makes a real advance in the 'knowledge of this strange and romantic passion in the hive bee, which has stirred the wonder of the world for
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