76 BEES. 
The common bees will never use their sting upon 
the queen ; if she is to be disposed of they starve her 
to death ; and the queen herself will sting nothing but 
royalty — nothing but a rival queen. 
The queen, I say, is the mother bee; it is undoubt- 
edly complimenting her to call her a queen and in- 
vest her with regal authority, yet she is a superb 
creature, and looks every inch a queen. It is an 
event to distinguish her amid the mass of bees when 
the swarm alights; it awakens a thrill. Before you 
have seen a queen you wonder if this or that bee, 
which seems a little larger than its fellows, is not she, 
but when you once really set eyes upon her you do 
not doubt fora moment. You know that is the queen. 
That long, elegant, shining, feminine-looking creature 
can be none less than royalty. How beautifully her 
body tapers, how distinguished she looks, how delib- 
erate her movements! The bees do not fall down be- 
fore her, but caress her and touch her person. The 
drones or males, are large bees too, but coarse, blunf, 
broad-shouldered, masculine-looking. . There is but 
one fact or incident in the life of the queen that looks 
imperial and authoritative: Huber relates that when 
the old queen is restrained in her movements by the 
workers, and prevented from destroying the young 
queens in their cells, she assumes a peculiar attitude 
and utters a note that strikes every bee motionless, 
and makes every head bow; while this sound lasts 
not a bee stirs, but all look abashed and humbled, yet 
whether the emotion is one of fear, or reverence, or 
of sympathy with the distress of the queen mother, 
is hard to determine. The moment it ceases and she 
advances again toward the royal cells, the bees bite 
and pull and insult her as before. 
