g THE PRACTICAL BBB GUIDE. 



perils ; that infrequent exaltation which beautifies self-abnega- 

 tion, idealizes the Unknown, and yields up life itself for 

 others — possesses them. Their patient, untiring labours have 

 secured for them supreme success : now they will forfeit all. 

 They have reached the highest point of affluence : now they 

 will renounce their wealth and fall to poverty. Their home is 

 furnished through, and stored with food abundantly : now they 

 will leave to others the fruits their energies have borne, forsake 

 their home, and rush out, wildly exuberant of happiness, to 

 build again their fortune, or in houseless cold and hunger 

 to die. 



16. Indomitable Spirits. — Not, however, without their queen. 

 She shall accompany them. It is not meet that they should 

 too far court disaster (209). Without her, they must inevitably 

 perish. With her, they shall die indeed, yet live again in their 

 successors. Nor will their indomitable spirits contemplate 

 extinction. Let but some friendly nook be found — some cavity 

 in a spreading tree whose advancing age provides a cradle for 

 a new born race ; there combs will form again, and eggs be 

 tended, and every passer-by shall hear the humming music of 

 the bees, down by the river side where 



" the curling waves 

 That break against the shore, shall lull the mind 

 By one soft impulse saved from vacancy." 



17. Queen Rearing. — However, one all-important preparation 

 must first be made. The bees which stay behind to nurse the 

 growing brood must have a queen to raise the colony to 

 strength again when the enthusiastic swarmers shall have 

 carried off the venerated mother bee. This, by one stupendous 

 miracle of nature, shall be accomplished. Not one, but manv 

 queens shall be provided, lest any untoward accident should 

 mar the great design. The workers, eager to enter on their 

 new adventure, construct some spqpial cells (196) by sacrifice 

 of other cells around them— cells larger and with thicker walls. 

 In them the queen, with that sublime indifference to persona! 

 advantage which at the moment actuates her, deposits eggs. 

 These, which in ordinary course of nature would produce but 

 worker bees— females undeveloped, incapable of impregna- 

 tion-shall be supplied with richer food, and in more 

 abundance; shall have their cells enlarged yet more, and 

 strengthened, and made to hang, in shape like acorns, between 

 the combs (Fig. 2) ; until the cells are capped, and the royal 

 princesses are left to spin their silken veils and, within a 

 week, to emerge as perfect virgin queens. 



