POLICY OF THE HIVE. 



general agitation was soon spread on those sides of the combs corre- 

 sponding with that of the scene here described. From all quarters 

 the bees crowded to the spot, and each group of fresh arrivals 

 broke their way through the circle, approached the new aspirant 

 to the throne, touched her with their antenna) and probosces, 

 offered her honey, and, in fine, took their rank outside the circle 

 previously formed. The bees forming this sort of court circle 

 clapped their wings from time to time, and fluttered apparently 

 with self-gratification, but without the least sign of disorder or 

 tumult. 



At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes from the commence- 

 ment of these proceedings the queen, who had hitherto remained 

 stationary, began to move. Far from opposing her progress or 

 hemming her in, as in the cases formerly described, the bees 

 opened the circle on the side to which she directed her steps, 

 followed her, and, ranging themselves on either side of her path, 

 lined the road in the same manner as is done by military bodies 

 in state processions. She soon began to lay drone eggs, for which 

 she sought and found the proper cells in the combs which had 

 been already constructed. 



While these things were passing on the side of the comb where 

 the new queen had been placed, all remained perfectly tranquil 

 on the opposite side. It seemed as though the bees on that side 

 were profoundly ignorant of the arrival of a new queen on the 

 opposite side. They continued to work assiduously at the royal 

 cells, the construction of which had been commenced on that side 

 of the comb, just as if they were ignorant that they had no 

 longer need of them ; they tended the grubs in those cells where 

 the eggs had been already hatched, supplying them as usual, 

 from time to time, with lloyal Jelly. But at length the new 

 queen in her progress arriving at that side of the comb, she was 

 received by those bees with the same homage and devotion of 

 which she had been already the object at the other side. They ap- 

 proached her, coaxed her with their antennae and probosces, offered 

 her honey, formed a court circle round her when she was stationary, 

 and a hedge at either side of her path when she moved, andjproved 

 how entirely they acknowledged her sovereignty by discontinuing 

 their labour at the royal cells, which they had commenced before 

 her arrival, and from which they now removed the eggs and 

 grubs, and ate the provisions which they had collected in them. 



From this moment the queen reigned supreme over the hive, 

 and was treated in all respects as if she had ascended the throne 

 in right of inheritance. 



130. Most of the proceedings of these curious little societies are 

 explicable by what seems a general social law among them, to 



63 



