THE BEE. 



and her royal breast is iired with agitation, nor does she rest until 

 she has engaged in mortal conflict with her rivals, and either puts 

 them to death or suffers death at their hands. 



120. When a hive, having lost its queen by emigration or other- 

 wise, is provided with several royal cells, which generally happens, 

 the first princess which issues from these in the perfect state im- 

 mediately ascends the throne in right of primogeniture. Although 

 her rivals are not yet in a condition to dispute the title, they, 

 nevertheless, excite her jealousy in the highest degree. Scarcely 

 ten minutes elapse from themoment she has attained the perfect 

 state, and issued from the royal cell, when she goes in quest of the 

 other royal cells, assails with fury the first she encounters, and 

 having gnawed a large hole in it she introduces the posterior 

 extremity of her abdomen, and kills her rival with her sting. 



121. A crowd of workers, who are passive spectators of this, ap- 

 proach the cell, and enlarging the breach, drag out the corpse of the 

 murdered princess, who, in such cases, has already assumed the 

 perfect state. If the queen attack in like manner a cell of which 

 the occupant is still in the state of nymph, she does not waste her 

 strength in slaying it, well knowing that its premature exposure 

 will do the work of death. The workers, in this case also enlarg- 

 ing the breach made by the queen, pull out the nymph, who 

 immediately perishes. 



122. Huber, who witnessed, and has described all these curious 

 proceedings, being desirous to ascertain what would happen if two 

 xival queens, both in the perfect state, found themselves together 

 in the same hive, produced artificially that contingency on the 

 15th May, 1790. He managed to provide in the same hive 

 royal cells, in an equal stage of forwardness, so that virgin 

 queens issued from two of them almost at the same moment* 



When they appeared in presence of each other they fell upon 

 each other with all the appearance of insatiable fury, and so 

 engaged one with the other, that each held in her mandibles the 

 antenna) of the other. They were engaged breast to breast, and 

 abdomen to abdomen, so that if each had put forth her sting, 

 mutual death would have been the consequence. But as if nature 

 had forbidden this mutual destruction, the combatants disengaged 

 themselves from each other's grasp, and fled one from the other 

 with the greatest precipitation. 



Huber says that this was not a mere incident which might have 

 occurred in a single case, but would not occur in others, for he 

 repeated the same experiment frequently, and it was always 

 followed by the same result. It seemed, therefore, as though it 

 were a case foreseen by nature, and that one only of the 

 combatants should fall in such combats. 

 58 



