156^ PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



and wherever she goes she has a court to attend upon 

 her^. It may here be observed, that the stimulant 

 Tvhich excites the bees to these acts of homaoe is the 

 pregnant state of their queen, and her fitness to main- 

 tain the population of the hive ; all they do being with 

 a view to the public good : for while she remains a vir- 

 gin she is treated with the utmost indifference, which 

 is exchanged, as soon as impregnation has taken place, 

 for the above marks of attaclmient^. 



The instinct of the bees, however, does not always 

 enable them to distinguish a partially fertile queen 

 from one that is universally so. What I mean is this 

 — A queen, whose impregnation is retarded beyond the 

 twenty-eighth day of her whole existence, lays only 

 male eggs, which are of no use whatever to the com- 

 munity, unless they are at the same time provided with 

 a sufficient supply of workers. Yet even a queen of 

 this description, and sometimes one that is entirely ste- 

 rile, is treated by them witli the same respect and ho- 

 mage as a fertile one. This seems to evince an ami- 

 able feeling in these creatures, attachment to the per- 

 son as well as to the functions of the sovereign ; which 

 is further manifested by their unwillingness at first to 

 receive a new sovereign upon the loss or death of their 

 old one. Nay, this respect is sometimes shown to the 

 carcase of a defunct queen, which Huber assures us he 

 has seen bees treat with the same attention that they 

 had shov/n her when alive ; for a long time preferring 

 her inanimate corpse to the fertile queens that he of- 

 fered to them". He attributes tltis to some agreeable 

 sensation which they experience from their queens, in- 



• Reaum. v. Pref. xv. " lluber, i. 269. ' Ibid. 322. 



