GOVERNMENT OF WASPS AND BEES. oil 



vious exertions, she did not succeed in tearing open 

 the silk. We removed the other royal cells with the 

 design of procuring queens for future experiments.'^ 



Schirach and Reim, observing that when there were 

 two queens in a hive, one soon disappeared, were led 

 to suppose that one was killed or expelled by the work- 

 ers; but Huber found that the workers take no part 

 in the affair, which is left wholly to the rival females 

 themselves, while Mr Dunbar observed that a stranger 

 queen was not stung to death, but closely confined by 

 a body of workers, till she was either suffocated or 

 perished from hunger. We shall give Ruber's ob- 

 servations in his own words. 



^ Two young queens,' he says, ^ quitted their 

 cells in one of our thinnest hives almost at the same 

 moment, and immediately, when they came within 

 sight, rushed upon each other with the most un- 

 governable fury. They placed themselves in such an 

 attitude that the antennae of each were held by the 

 antagonist's mandibles, head being opposed to head, 

 trunk to trunk, and abdomen to abdomen. They had, 

 indeed, only to bend their tails, and they would have 

 fallen reciprocal victims to each other's sting. But it 

 having been so ordered by Providence that these duels 

 should not prove fatal to both combatants, upon 

 finding themselves in this perilous situation, a panic 

 fear seemed to strike them, and they disengaged 

 themselves with the utmost precipitation, and fled. 

 I have repeated this observation very often, so that 

 it leaves no room for doubt. A few minutes afler 

 they had separated, their terror abated, and the at- 

 tack was renewed, but the result was the same as 

 before. During all this time, the workers seemed 

 in great agitation, and the tumult seemed to increase 

 when the combatants separated. Twice I observed 

 them stop the flight of the queens, seize their limbs, 



* Huber on Bees, p. 93. 



