150 The Bee People. 
Evidently our queen considers one such 
display of courage quite enough to establish 
her royal character, for she does not waste 
time fighting any more queens, but goes 
to the remaining queen cells, pulls off the 
caps where the bottled-up queen babies 
lie, and sticks her dagger right into their 
poor, soft, helpless little bodies. 
After she has stung all the baby queens 
she puts up her dagger, very likely deter- 
mined never to put anything so valuable to 
such a use again, for you remember her 
sting is also her ovipositor. 
She does not lose it when she stings a 
bee, because the parts where the sting en- 
ters are so soft that she can pull it out 
again; but you can imagine what a sad 
wound the barbs make when pulled out. 
Workers never sting a queen. If a 
strange queen is put into the hive, or flies in 
by mistake, and they do not want her, they 
gather about her so closely as to smother 
her to death, but they will not sting her. 
