BEE-BOXES. 85 



And mingling multitudes perplex the view, 



Yet all in order apt their tasks pursue ; 



Still happier they, whose favour'd ken hath seen 



Pace slow and silent round, the state's fair queen.'* 



EVANS. 



An opportunity of beholding the proceedings 

 of the queen is so very rarely afforded, that many 

 apiarians have passed their lives without enjoying 

 it ; and Reaumur himself, even with the assistance 

 of a glass-hive, acknowledges that he was many 

 years before he had that pleasure. Those who have 

 been so fortunate, agree in representing her ma- 

 jesty as being very slow and dignified in her move- 

 ments, and as being constantly surrounded by a 

 guard of about a dozen bees, who seem to pay her 

 great homage, and always to have their faces turned 

 towards her, like courtiers, in the presence of 

 royalty. 



" But mark, of royal port, and awful mien, 



Where moves with measur'd pace the INSECT QUEEN ! 

 Twelve chosen guards, with slow and solemn gait, 

 Bend at her nod, and round her person wait." EVANS. 



Mr. Dunbar's observations, upon the move- 

 ments of the queen in his mirror hive, do not 

 correspond altogether with what is here stated. 

 He says that he did not find her majesty attended 

 in her progress by a guard, but that wherever she 

 moved the way was cleared ; that the heads of 

 the workers whom she passed upon her route w r ere 

 always turned towards her, that they fawned upon 



