CH. n.j THE HIVE BEE. 43 



proboscis arig-ht, for if she required honey, she 

 stretched it out at random, and by chance only, to 

 the mouths of the workers. The antennae of a se- 

 cond queen having been amputated, she was put 

 into the same hive as the first, and acted in the 

 9ame manner; she, too, ran about in a delirium, 

 retired to the corners of the hive, and strove to g-et 

 out. Two remarkable things occurred in these ex- 

 penments: — 1st, the workers, though they knew 

 they were queens, for they paid them the honours 

 of a sovereign, did not know one queen from an- 

 other ; for, as it has been already stated, they im- 

 prison a strange queen when she enters a hive 

 already provided with one. In this case both queens 

 had their respective courts. 2dly, The dreadful anti 

 pathy of queens to each other was annihilated by 

 the removal of the antennae ; for the two rivals often 

 met, but never took the least notice of each other. 



When Huber put in a third queen, whose antennae 

 were entire, the bees treated her immediately as a 

 stranger, and instantly imprisoned her. 



These experiments throw some light on the mode 

 in which communication takes place between bees. 

 In the first place, it is not improbable that of them- 

 selves they distinguish between a queen and a 

 worker, since they pay homage to the queen. We 

 may then conjecture, that in order to distinguish 

 one queen from another, some communication must 

 be made by the individual queen to her subjects that 

 she is their sovereign, since where the antennae 

 were amputated in two queens, both were equally 

 well treated, while a third, who had the antennae 

 entire, was instantly recognised as a stranger. 



One of the mutilated queens strove to get out of 

 the hive, and not the slightest attempt was made by 

 the other bees to accompany her. Now, where the 

 antennae have not been amputated, the queen com- 

 municates some sensation to the workers, which, as 

 Huber conjectures, agitates them so much, that the 



