23O LOWER ANIMALS. 



quently relieve the queen of the worker's duties. Late in the sum- 

 mer males and young 1 queens appear. In the autumn all but the 

 young queens perish. These hibernate in protected places until 

 spring when they found new colonies. 24 Here we have an ex- 

 istence of a little more than a year, about eight months of which 

 is intense activity. That part of the new generation which is to 

 continue the species is produced the last thing, the early products 

 being used as infertile workers. 



This is in marked contrast with butterflies and moths. As cater- 

 pillars their lives are anything but active ; as cocoons they hibernate ; 

 and as adults they flutter about for a few days and expire. The 

 relative intelligence of bumble bees and moths is proportional to the 

 length of their active lives. 



The honey bee is much above the bumble bee. If the queen be 

 accidentally killed or lost, the hive is thrown into the greatest con- 

 fusion ; the bees rush from the hive and seek the queen in all direc- 

 tions; after some hours all becomes quiet again and labors are re- 

 sumed. If there be no eggs nor brood in the combs, the bees seem 

 to lose their faculties; they cease to labor and to collect food, and 

 the whole community soon dies. If there be brood in the combs, the 

 labors continue as follows : having selected a grub not more than 

 three days old, the workers sacrifice three contiguous cells that the 

 cell of the grub may be made into a royal cell ; they supply it with 

 the peculiar stimulating jelly reserved for the queens, and at the end 

 of the usual sixteen days the larva of a worker is metamorphosed 

 into a queen. 25 This is intelligence and not instinct, and this intel- 

 ligence is inherited from the queen which lives several years, and 

 much longer than either the workers or the drones. 



(24) Comstock, Insect Life, p. 257. 



(25) Appleton's Cyclopaedia. 



