ry BEES. 



see how the way opened for her movements, how all the 

 heads of the workers are inclined towards her as she moves^ 

 and how fondly they caress her with their antennae in 

 passing- ; for she is in person every (fraction of an) inch a 

 queen, and bears the stamp of sovereignty upon her in most 

 legible characters. She is larger than any of her subjects, 

 ;is well as more elegant in her form. The abdomen, espe- 

 cially, is much long-er than in the bees around her : the wings 

 much shorter, and the legs and antennae of a paler colour. 



The queen bee is not so much larger than her subjects as is 

 generally supposed. An old queen certainly is considerably 

 Lu'ger, but the difference consists principally in length, as 

 the drone is in reality a larger insect than the queen. I have 

 often had queen-bees which so closely resembled the ordinary 

 working bees, that none but a practised eye could have dis- 

 tinguished them from the ordinary inhabitants of the hive, 

 and several persons to whom they were shown alive could 

 not for some time be persuaded of their regal station. Yet 

 she is easily distinguished from her subjects by many un- 

 mistakeable signs. Besides those marks of difference given 

 above, her short wings cross shghtly when she is at rest, 

 thus affording an easy method of separating her from the 

 ordinary bees. This shortness of wing also causes her flight 

 to be very different from that of her subjects — her body 

 hangs down rather more than theirs. Her sting is of a 

 curved form, whereas that of the working- bees is straight. 

 The internal anatomy of the queen-bee may be seen in the 

 engraving, p. 35. 



NoAV that we have been presented to her apiarian majesty 

 as she really is, let us see what opinion older writers held, who 

 were not favoured as we are with all the adjuncts of leaf-hives, 

 mirror hives, and other necessary apparatus for performing- 

 the difficult and dehcate feat of observing the queen-bee. 

 Even in these days, observers are constantly contradicting- 

 each other's researches, and although science has so far ad- 

 vanced in bee-knowledge, yet we are not by any means fully 

 put in possession of the movements of the sovereign of the 

 hive. The object of her mysterious aerial excursion, for ex- 

 ample, can only be conjectured from analog}^, as no telescope 

 lias as yet followed the winged monarch in her flig-lit It is, 

 therefore, no wonder tn-an; men aesutuie oi xne nie^^s j: Ovv 



