Instinctive Failures
I wished to move a hive of bees a few yards to the west, chiefly for the reason that it was a cause of fear to a timid gardener. When I suggested to the visiting bee-man that I should help him to move it, he altogether refused. "You must move it at least half-a-mile or not at all," he said. Another verdict was that you could not safely move it leis than 11 miles, that is outside the journeying distance of bees. All opinions agreed that it was fatal to move it a few yards, at any rate sideways, though possibly it could be moved a yard backwards. One must accept the professional faith ; and there are many strange examples of such blind fidelity to a narrow room. I knew a farmer who moved one of his portable hen-houses on a stubble some thirty yards, and not a bird returned to it. The whole company roosted on the ground where the house had been. However, no creature perhaps can compare with the bee. It can wander about promiscuously and when loaded up travel a mile and make a bee-line home, but it cannot divert that homing line by even a fraction.
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