352 BRITISH BEES. 



those \vhich collected it fly off for fresh supplies, should 

 more be needed. Concurrently with the execution 

 of all these things, wax is still being secreted by fes- 

 toons of bees suspended wherever there is space, the 

 sculpturer bees are still moulding cells, the queen is still 

 laying eggs, deferentially attended, as usual, by her 

 maids of honour ; the young brood is still being fed ; 

 other bees are ventilating the hive at its entrance and 

 within its streets and lanes by the rapid vibration of 

 their wings ; the sentinels are diligently keeping guard 

 to repel the inimical intrusion of wasps or snails or 

 woodlice, or the moth which is so destructive to the in- 

 terior in her larva state, from the covered moveable 

 silken retreat which she constructs impervious to the 

 sting, and thence with impunity gets at the silk of the 

 cocoons and consumes the wax, making, when once fairly 

 domiciled, such fearful havoc in the hive that the bees are 

 fain to desert it, and the many other numerous enemies 

 which lust for the luscious honey, or whose voracity is 

 attracted by the poor little diligent bees themselves, but 

 who in such contingencies exhibit invincible courage, 

 which, if not always successful in its efforts, is always 

 meritorious. Where self-preservation is not the promp- 

 ter, or the rivalry of love the instigator, but the duration 

 of which is limited to a season, the feuds of the animal 

 world all seem to proceed from the urgency of their 

 gastronomic suggestions, the acrimony of which urges 

 craft and strength to their most powerful exhibition. 

 To allay hunger, destruction is perpetrated and order 

 despoiled, and thus our bees become the victims of the 

 imperativeness of this universal law. But sometimes 

 they are triumphant over a very large enemy ; for in- 

 stance, an intrusive mouse, or a slug that has slimed its 



