192 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
the first time, and if thereafter the hive settles 
down to its old courses, the national character for 
sobriety and industry soon rehabilitates itself. But 
it is just the strength of this public inclination 
towards order and labour which varies so greatly 
in different hives. How matters are likely to go 
can be readily ascertained by setting careful watch 
on the hive from the day the first swarm leaves. 
There are sure to be several queen-cells, some 
capped over and almost ready to hatch out, and 
others in various stages of development. All these 
cells are constantly and assiduously guarded by 
the worker-bees, because directly one of the queens 
is hatched, her first thought is to make a speedy 
end to all future rivalry by murdering her sisters. 
She comes from her cell evidently spoiling for a 
fight, and imbued to the core with that inveterate 
hatred of her kind which is the ruling passion of 
her existence. 
That worker-bees and queen-bees should have 
an identical origin, and yet that the nature of the 
one is to live in perfect harmony, while the nature 
of the other is to be at perpetual war, is one of 
those mysterious things in bee-life which probably 
will never be explained. If the queen-bee of 
to-day can be really taken as an approximate type 
of the aboriginal female of her race, it is not 
difficult to understand that after her generation in 
force the communal life of the mother-stock would 
become an impossibility, and that with the mating- 
