THE GENESIS OF THE QUEEN 115 



of killing has once been hers ; she will never know 

 it again. Now her own fate is in the balance. 

 It may be death, or a new life in a new home : 

 all depends on the deliberate decree of those who 

 have made her, and who now use or discard her, 

 for their own purposes. If it be late spring, and 

 the condition of the stock warrant it, this govern- 

 ing spirit may decide for colonisation, and the old 

 queen may be disposed of by sending her off with 

 a swarm. But other counsels may prevail. The 

 times may be unripe, or the weather inopportune. 

 And then Fate, in the shape of a merciless appli- 

 cation of principles, will descend upon her, and 

 her own wise children will ruthlessly put her to 

 death. 



This State-execution of the queen, at the first 

 sign of waning fertility, is a peculiarly pathetic as 

 well as a tragic phase of bee-life. The stern, 

 soured amazons of the hive must have their 

 systems and conventions in everything they under- 

 take ; and they cannot even bring about the 

 supersession of the old queen without due circum- 

 stance and ceremonial. Given that it would be 

 against the best interests of the common weal that 

 she should retain her life after the loss of her 

 queenhood, one swift stroke would immediately 

 determine the matter, and the law — that there 

 shall be no useless members in the bee-republic — 

 would have its due fulfilment. But old tradition 

 rules that the queen shall suffer no violence from 

 8— a 



