212 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



dashing to the ground wasps and other bees which 

 came singly or in parties. I found all the combs 

 gutted. Fragments of wax were strewn about. Most 

 of the cells had been opened and sucked dry. The 

 grubs, torn from their cradles, had been carried off by 

 the wasps. The princess or queen cells were empty 

 with the rest. And combs that a few hours before 

 would have scaled four or five pounds apiece were light 

 almost as if made of paper. More than two years of 

 labour, the intense spring and summer labour of several 

 generations of workers, had been thus spoilt. The 

 queen had roamed from cell to cell laying in vain her 

 tens of thousands of eggs. 



I know of no tragedy in the world of winged life so 

 appalling as the ruin of a bee society through mishap. 

 The wasp nest always falls to ruin and death at the 

 end of the season, winged and un winged alike perishing 

 miserably ; but its ruin is strictly within the law of 

 Nature ; the ruin of the bee hive is without the law, 

 an accident and a disaster. Besides not all the wasps 

 perish. The queen will live, and she carries in mar- 

 vellous microcosm the whole state or society, which 

 she will refound in due season. 



There is no asylum for a bee worker, guard, queen, 

 or drone once its hive has been stormed and sacked. 

 If it sought shelter in another hive it would be de- 

 tected by the hot guards at the entrance and beaten 

 down. It is an outcast, a pariah ; and ere night comes 

 it will be numbed to death. 



