UO BEES. 



is pierced witli a sting, he dies almost immediately, but tbo 

 queen, althoiig'li she is completely disabled, does not actually 

 die for several hours, but remains crawling- about the hive in 

 a state of utter debility, while the victorious queen, knowing- 

 that her late opponent is incapable of doing- any mischief, 

 quietly lets her crawl about as much as she likes, and 

 disdains to attack her a second time. She is now un- 

 questioned mistress of the hive. Love succeeds to w^ar. 

 The Amazon of the hour changes for an equally brief period, 

 to the tender virgin, whom many aspire to woo and win. 

 High in the air, where no eyes may follow, the drones pre- 

 pare her nuptial couch. Before she ascends, she looks 

 carefully around her, perhaps to assure herself against pry- 

 ing- eyes, perhaps to know her own kingdom again, of which 

 she has yet had so little experience. A few coy half-flights 

 now take place, as though her mind misgave her, and, at 

 last, she rises, describing in her flight large horizontal circles, 

 until she is beyond the ken of human eyes. She returns 

 in about half an hour, and so ends her brief time of love. 

 Henceforward she is the queen and the mother (literally) of 

 her people, and exhibits accordingly, ever afterwards, the 

 gravity and decorum suitable to her exalted position. 



Although the queen-bee is really the mother of the hive, 

 this privilege of hers is now and then usurped by a subject. 

 It does sometimes happen that the worker-bees become 

 fertile and lay eggs as well as the queen. This curious 

 fact serves to prove the assertion that worker-bees are but 

 undeveloped females. The fertile worker, however, deposits 

 only eggs which become drones. The fiict of their fertility 

 is accounted for by supposing that some of the food intended 

 for the royal nursling, and which is more pungent and 

 stimulating than the food of the ordinary bees, has by the 

 clumsiness of the nurse-bees been dropped into their cells 

 while they were in their larva state. This conjecture is 

 rendered more probable by the fact that those fertile workers 

 invariably issue from cells near those fortunate bees who 

 have been transformed into queen-bees by the ordinary pro- 

 cess. When it so happens that the lawful sovereign of 

 the hive has not been impregnated within twenty days after 

 her emerging from her cell, the eggs which she lays will 

 produce nothing but drones. The eggs producing drones 



