CH. I. j THE HIVE BEE 33 



all motive to exertion, so that she may truly be 

 called the soul of the hive. 



" We are only sure of one principle of action," 

 says Reaumur, " among bees — the love for their 

 queen, or rather the numerous posterity to which 

 she is to give birth. Each bee seems to be actuated 

 either by a sensation which has in view the welfare 

 of all, or by the love of posterity. Whether they 

 construct cells or most carefully polish them, or la- 

 bour to gather a harvest of honey, it is never directly 

 for themselves. Tliis may appear somewhat para- 

 doxical to those who have remarked that, at the end 

 of winter, the bees consume the honey they had stored 

 up in spring and summer. But the experiments just 

 detailed show, that the moment they lose the hope 

 of a numerous progeny, they cease to gather the 

 food which is necessary for their own preservation ; 

 life seems to them of no value when unsupported 

 by this hope, and so they choose to die. The love 

 of offspring appears, therefore, to be the all-moving 

 principle." Swammerdam was of this opinion ; and 

 all who study the habits of the bee attentively must 

 coincide with him. 



From what has been detailed, little doubt can be 

 entertained that, be the moving spring what it may, 

 the conduct of bees to the mother is tender, true, 

 and full of devotion. To ascertain whether this 

 feeling of attachment and devotion was confined to 

 the particular queen which gave them birth, Reau- 

 mur made an experiment. 



He shut up a queen taken from one hive, with some 

 workers taken from another, so that both were 

 strangers to each other. " I was curious," lie says, 

 " to note how she would be received, and I saw she 

 was received like ' a queen.' Bees to the number 

 of a dozen or more surrounded her, and treated her 

 with great honour. It happened that the box in 

 which she had been enclosed was filled with dust, 

 in consequence of which, when introduced among the 



