at last the queen-mother thought it time to start, and her followers came around her in the tree, and were very still for a minute. several of the workers had been flying in circles around the tree, and now they came to the doorway and called. then all came out, and hovered in the air a few minutes before stopping to rest on a bush near by. when they rested, the first bee held on to the bush, the next bee held on to her, and that was the way they did until they were all clinging tightly together in a squirming, dark-brown mass.