PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 403 



for the combat. When they could discern each other, the rightful 

 queen, rushing furiously upon the pretender, seized her with her jaws 

 near the root of the wings, and, after fixing her without power of motion 

 against the comb, with one stroke of her sting dispatched her. If 

 ever so many queens are introduced into a hive, all but one will perish, 

 and that one will have won the throne by her own unassisted valor and 

 strength. Sometimes a strange queen attempts of herself to enter a hive : 

 in this case the workers, who are upon the watch, and who examine every 

 thing that presents itself, immediately seize her with their jaws by the 

 legs or wings, and hem her in so straitly with a clustered circle of guards, 

 turning their heads on all sides towards her, that it is impossible for her to 

 penetrate within. If they retain her prisoner too long, she dies either 

 from the want of food or air, but never from their stings.^ 



Here you may perhaps feel curious to know, supposing the reigning 

 queen to die or be killed, and the bees to have discovered their loss, 

 whether they would then receive a foreigner that offers herself to them or 

 is introduced amongst them. Reaumur says they would do this immedi- 

 ately^ ; but Huber, who had better means of observing them, and studied 

 them with more undivided attention, affirms that this will not be the case, 

 unless twenty-four hours have elapsed since the death of the old queen. 

 Previously to this period, as if they were absorbed by grief at their 

 calamity, or indulged a fond hope of her revival, an intruder would be 

 treated exactly as I have described. But when the period just mentioned 

 is past, they will receive any queen that is presented to them with the 

 customary homage, aud she may occupy the vacant throne.^ 



I must now beg you to attend to what takes place in the second 

 case that I mentioned, where queens are wanted to lead forth swarms. 

 Here you will, with reason, suppose that nature has instilled some instinct 

 into the bees, by which these necessary individuals are rescued from the 

 fury of the reigning sovereign. 



Did the old queen of the hive remain in it till the young ones were 

 ready to come forth, her instinctive jealousy would lead her to attack them 

 all as successively produced ; and being so much older and stronger, the 

 probability is that she would destroy them, in which case there- could be 

 no swarms, and the race would perish. But this is wisely prevented by 

 a circumstance which invariably takes place — that the first swarm is con- 

 ducted by this queen, and not by a newly disclosed one, as Reaumur and 

 others have supposed. Previously to her departure, after her great laying 

 of male eggs in the month of May, she oviposits in the royal cells when 

 about three or four lines in length, which the workers have in the mean- 

 time constructed. These, however, are not all furnished in one day, — a 

 most essential provision, in consequence of which the queens come forth 

 successively, in order to lead successive swarms. There is something sin- 

 gular in the manner in which the workers treat the young queens that are 

 to lead the swarms. After the cells are covered in, one of their first 

 employments is to remove here and there a portion of the wax from their 

 surface, so as to render it unequal ; and immediately before the last meta- 

 morphosis takes place, the walls are so thin that all the motions of the 

 inclosed pupa are perceptible through them. On the seventh day the 



» Huber, i. 186. 2 Rgaum. v. 268. ^ Huber, i. 190. 



