INTERIOR OF THE HIVE. 257 



must (fairy like) effect a passage at this epoch of interest and 

 importance, the loss of its queen with a large proportion of its 

 population. Kow upon row of hexagonal houses hang sus- 

 pended in clusters from a common roof. Most of them are oc- 

 cupied, some as store-houses for honey and Bee-bread, others as 

 nurseries for Bee-infancy, and, where not otherwise engaged, as 

 dormitories for Bee-labourers, who, with heads and shoulders 

 ensconced within their cells, are accustomed, at intervals, thus 

 to turn their backs on labour, and recruit for fresh exertions. 

 But few enough are the slumberers now taking their repose ; 

 the grand event of the morning has raised a general commo- 

 tion by no means subsided with the absence of its immediate 

 cause, from which mighty effects are yet about to spring. 



From the departure of their reigning monarch and queen 

 mother, our amazonian citizens are, for the present, queenless. 

 What a predicament for a people whose very spring of action 

 is set in motion, as we have seen, by loyalty ; but it is an exi- 

 gence, to meet which they are well provided. Among the 

 common six-sided cells which compose the mass of building, 

 are perceived some half-dozen oval structures, of more than 

 thrice their size, which are occupied by abodes of growing 

 royalty ; and within these waxen palaces have been for some 

 weeks nurtured, in different stages of progression towards ma- 

 turity, as many young princesses, for one of which the vacant 

 throne is destined. For which of them? is the question which 

 priority of birth and emergement from one of the cells of state 



