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BEES AS A BODY POLITIC. 



" The happy people, in their waxen cells, 

 Sit tending public cares." 



WE must now treat of Bees as a body politic ; our reform 

 episode may not require a key, but it shall have an appendix. 

 We cannot for one moment suppose any of our readers so 

 ignorant of the hive's economy, as not to have discovered in 

 the jealous, vindictive, fertile, adulated sovereign, the queen- 

 mother of the Apiary; in her numerous spinster subjects, busied 

 in all cares and labours but those of maternity (and some even 

 which to that more properly belong), the workers of the same, 

 called neuters, though in fact imperfect females ; and in the 

 idle, luxurious, parasitic lords of the Apian court, the lazy 

 drones which live on other's labour. 



We shall now relate a few facts concerning the economy of 

 Bees, stripped of the fanciful attire wherein we have taken the 

 liberty of dressing them. 



If any form of government be faultless, it must be one acting 

 immediately under divine guidance, and of this class are the 

 instinctive institutions of social animals, which are therefore 

 perfect in their kind. Under an idea of such perfection 

 (erroneously applied) the people of the hive have been held up 



