The Life of the Bee 



ciently established are others so precise 

 and unvarying as to prove that the same 

 degree of political civilisation has not 

 been attained by all races of the domestic 

 bee, and that, among some of them, the 

 public spirit still is groping its way, seek- 

 ing perhaps another solution of the 

 royal problem. The Syrian bee, for 

 instance, habitually rears 120 queens and 

 often more, whereas our Apis Mellifica 

 will rear ten or twelve at most. Cheshire 

 tells of a Syrian hive, in no way abnormal, 

 where 120 dead queen-mothers were 

 found, and 90 living, unmolested queens. 

 This may be the point of departure, or 

 the point of arrival, of a strange social 

 evolution, which it would be interesting 

 to study more thoroughly. We may add 

 that as far as the rearing of queens is con- 

 cerned, the Cyprian bee approximates to 

 the Syrian. And finally, there is yet 

 another fact which establishes still more 



