THE QUEEN-BEE. 



when we consider that the queen knowingly lays 

 eggs under conditions in which they will, in the 

 ordinary course of events, become princesses. Then 

 another circumstance of peculiar significance, and 

 very marvellous, is that, notwithstanding the absolute 

 authority possessed by the queen under other condi- 

 tions, and in spite of the usual subjection and 

 subservience of the workers, they will not allow their 

 monarch complete liberty in the destruction of her 

 royal progeny. If the crowded state of their dwelling 

 makes it evident that the emission of a colony is 

 necessary, the workers-in-waiting forcibly restrain 

 their sovereign from indulging in her strong desire to 

 slay her fully-developed daughters. She resents the 

 interference, but no assumption of her dignity and 

 authority will avail, and her absolutism is in this 

 direction distinctly limited. Incensed at length 

 beyond endurance, she quits the hive at the head 

 of a swarm of her faithful subjects, and establishes a 

 community where again she will have sole sway. 

 If, on the other hand, circumstances do not neces- 

 sitate a division of the population, the old queen is 

 allowed to destroy the young ones as they issue from 

 the pupa state. 



It is said that the only other condition in which 

 the workers rebel against their monarch is when she 

 is growing worn out with age, and seems likely to 

 fail in power of egg-laying. Then she is believed, in 

 some instances, to be supplanted ; but it is not 

 known with certainty whether natural death may not 

 account for her removal, or whether she is slain by 

 her subjects, or by a young queen preserved by their 

 intervention. 



