PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 143 



getlier very harmoniously without molesting each other: 

 but there is that instinctive jealousy in a queen bee, 

 that no sooner does she discover the existence of an- 

 other in the hive, than sjie is put into a state of the most 

 extreme agitation, and is not easy until she has attacked 

 and destroyed her. 



Naturalists had observed, that when there were two 

 queens in the same hive, one of them soon perished ; 

 but some supposed (this was the opinion of Schirach 

 and Riera) that the workers destroyed the supernu- 

 meraries. Reaumur, hoAvever, conjectured that these 

 queens attacked each other ; and his conjecture has been 

 since confirmed by the actual observation of other na- 

 turalists. Blassiere, the translator of Schirach, tells 

 us, as what he had himself witnessed, that the strongest 

 queen kills her rival with her sting; and the same is 

 asserted by Huber, whose opportunities of observation 

 were greater than those of any of his precursors^. 



The queen that is first liberated from her confine- 

 ment, and has assumed the perfect or imago state (it is 

 to be supposed that the author is here speaking of a hive 

 which has lost the old queen), soon after this event 

 goes to visit the royal cells that are still inhabited 

 She darts with fury upon the first with which she meets ; 

 by means of her jaws she gnaws a hole large enough 

 to introduce the end of her abdomen, and with her 

 sting, before the included female is in a condition to 

 defend herself or resist her attack, she gives her a mor- 

 tal wound. The workers, who remain passive spec- 

 tators of this assassination, after she quits the victim ot' 



" Schirach, 'JOOj note *. Ilubct, i. 170— 



