116 PERFECT SOCIETIES OP INSECTS." 



they are more readily detected : not indeed by any 

 observable difference between them and the workers, 

 but chiefly by the difference of their instincts : — from 

 the other females they are distinguished solely by their 

 dirniautive size. Like those of the wasps and hive- 

 bees, these minor queens produce only male eggs, 

 which come out in time to fertilize the young females 

 that found the vernal colonies. M. P. Huber suspects 

 that, as in the case of the female bee, it is a different 

 kind of food that develops their ovaries, and so distin- 

 guishes them from the workers. They are generally 

 attended by a small number of males, who form their 

 court. 



M. Huber, watching at midnight the proceedings of 

 a nest which he kept under a glass, observed the inha- 

 bitants to be in a state of great agitation : many of these 

 bees were engaged in making a cell ; the queen-mother 

 of the colony, as she may be called, who is always ex- 

 tremely jealous of her pygmy rivals, came and drove 

 them away from the cell ; — she in her turn was driven 

 away by the others, which pursued her, beating their 

 wings with the utmost fury, to the bottom of the nest. 

 The cell was then constructed, and two of them at the 

 same time oviposited in it. The queen returned to 

 the charge, exhibiting similar signs of anger; and, 

 chasing them away again, put her head into the cell, 

 when, seizing the eggs that had been laid, she was ob- 

 served to eat them Avith great avidity. The same scene 

 was again renewed, with the same issue. After this, one 

 of the small females returned and covered the empty 

 cells with wax. When the mother-queen was removed, 

 several of the small females contended for the cell with 



