398 THE STORY-BOOK OF SCIENCE 



houses are given over to pillage. There is an orgy 

 of feasting with no thought of the morrow. Dagger- 

 thrusts are exchanged. The queen decides on a mas- 

 ter-stroke : she abandons the ungrateful country, the 

 country that she founded and that now raises up 

 rivals against her. 'Let them that love me follow 

 me!' And behold her proudly rushing out of the 

 hive, never to enter it again. Her partizans fly away 

 with her. The emigrating troop forms a swarm, 

 which goes forth to found a new colony elsewhere. 



"To restore order, the working-bees that were 

 away during the tumult come and join the bees left 

 in the hive. Two young queens set up their rights. 

 Which of them shall reign? A duel to the death 

 shall decide it. They come out of their cells. 

 Hardly have they caught sight of each other when 

 they join in shock of battle, rear upright, seize with 

 their mandibles each an antenna of the other, and 

 hold themselves head to head, breast to breast. In 

 this position, each would only have to bend the end 

 of its stomach a little to plunge its poisoned sting 

 into its rivaPs body. But that would be a double 

 death, and their instinct forbids them a mode of as- 

 sault in which both would perish. They separate 

 and retire. But the people gathered around them 

 prevent their getting away: one of them must suc- 

 cumb. The two queens return to the attack. The 

 more skilful one, at a moment when the other is off 

 guard, jumps on its rivaPs back, seizes it where 

 the wing joins the body, and stings it in the side. 

 The victim stretches its legs and dies. All is over. 



