74 BEES. 
It is a singular fact, also, that the queen is made, 
not born. If the entire population of Spain or Great 
Britain were the offspring of one mother, it might be 
found necessary to hit upon some device by which a 
royal baby could be manufactured out of an ordinary 
one, or else give up the fashion of royalty. All the 
bees in the hive have a common parentage, and the 
queen and the worker are the same in the ege and in 
the chick; the patent of royalty is in the cell and in 
the food ; the cell being much larger, and the food a 
peculiar stimulating kind of jelly. In certain contin- 
gencies, such as the loss of the queen with no eggs 
in the royal cells, the workers take the larva of an 
ordinary bee, enlarge the cell by taking in the two 
adjoining ones, and nurse it and stuff it and coddle it, 
till at the end of sixteen days it comes out a queen. 
But ordinarily, in the natural course of events, the 
young queen is kept a prisoner in her cell till the 
old queen has left with the swarm. Later on, the un- 
hatched queen is guarded against the reigning queen, 
who only wants an opportunity to murder every royal 
scion in the hive. At this time both the queens, the 
one a prisoner and the other at large, pipe defiance 
at each other, a shrill, fine, trumpet-like note that any 
ear will at once recognize. This challenge, not being 
allowed to be accepted by either party, is followed, ina 
day or two, by the abdication of the reigning queen ; she 
leads out the swarm, and her successor is liberated by 
her keepers, who, in her time, abdicates in favor of the 
next younger. When the bees have decided that no 
more swarms can issue, the reigning queen is allowed 
to use her stiletto upon her unhatched sisters. Cases 
have been known where two queens issued at the 
same time, when a mortal combat ensued, encouraged 
