402 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



certain, for the workers enlarge the breach, pull it out, and it perishes.-* 

 If it happens, as it sometimes does, that two queens are disclosed at the 

 same time, the care of Providence to prevent the hive from being wholly 

 despoiled of a governor is singularly manifested by a remarkable trait in 

 their instinct, which, when mutual destruction seems inevitable, makes 

 them separate from each other as if panic-struck. " Two young queens," 

 says M. Huber, "left their cells one day, almost at the same moment; as 

 soon as they came within sight, they darted upon each other, as if inflamed 

 by the most ungovernable anger, and placed themselves in such an attitude 

 that the antennae of each were held by the jaws of its antagonist ; head 

 was opposed to head, trunk to trunk, abdomen to abdomen ; and they had 

 only to bend the extremity of the latter, and they would have fallen 

 reciprocal victims to each other's sting." But nature having decreed that 

 these duels should not be fatal to both combatants, as soon as they were 

 thus circumstanced a panic fear seemed to strike them, and they disen- 

 gaged themselves, and each fled away. After a few minutes were expired, 

 the attack was renewed in a similar manner with the same issue ; till at 

 last one suddenly seizing the other by her wing, mounted upon her and 

 inflicted a mortal wound.^ 



The combats I have here described to you took place between virgin 

 queens ; but M. Huber found that those which had been impregnated 

 were actuated by the same animosity, and attacked royal cells with a fury 

 equally destructive. When another fertile queen had been introduced 

 into this hive, a singular scene ensued, which proves how well aware the 

 workers are that they cannot prosper with two sovereigns. Soon after 

 she was introduced, a circle of bees was formed round the stranger, — not 

 to compliment her on her arrival, or pay her the usual homage, but to 

 confine her, and prevent her escape ; for they insensibly agglomerated 

 themselves in such numbers round her, and hemmed her in so closely, that 

 in about a minute she was completely a prisoner. While this was trans- 

 acting, what was equally remarkable, other workers assembled in clusters 

 round the legitimate queen, and impeded all her motions; so that soon 

 she was not more at liberty than the intruder. It seemed as if the bees 

 foresaw the combat that was to ensue between the two rivals, and were 

 impatient for the event ; for they only confined them when they appeared 

 to avoid each other. To witness the homage, respect, and love that they 

 usually manifest to their lawful ruler, the anxiety concerning her which 

 they often exhibit, and the distrust which for a time (as we shall see here- 

 after) they usually show towards strange ones even when deprived of their 

 own, one would expect that, rather than permit such a perilous combat, 

 they would unite in the defence of their sovereign, and cause the inter- 

 loper to perish under the stroke of their fatal stings. But no ; the contest 

 for empire must be between the rival candidates ; no worker must interfere 

 in any other way than that which I have described ; no contending armies 

 must fin;ht the battles of their sovereigns, for the law of succession seems 

 to be '• deiur fortiori.'' But to return to my narrative. The legitimate 

 queen appearing inclined to move towards that part of the comb on which 

 her rival was stationed, the bees immediately began to retire from the 

 space that intervened between them, so that there was soon a clear arena 



»^Huber, i. 171. « Huber, i. 174. 



